Crossed Paths
by AuereusUna
Summary: Dean races to L.A. because of Sam. While he's there he meets up with a strange P.I. and his motely crew. Crossover with Angel. Takes place after Dean and Sam part ways in Scarecrow, but the rest of the episode doesnt happen. Takes place in third season of
1. Chapter 1

Dean gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were pure white. He gripped out of fear and because he couldn't get the phone call he had recently gotten out of his mind.

_Earlier……_

_RING RING_

_The damn phone had woken him up from the first real sleep he had been able to get since he and Sam had split up. He reached for his cell that was laying on the night stand beside his hotel bed. He didn't even bother looking at the caller id. It was either Sam (unlikely since they hadn't spoken since their split-up) or a client._

"_Hello," he said sharply, hating the person for waking him up._

"_Hello, this is Officer Trent from the Los Angeles Police Department. Who may I ask is speaking?" the voice on the other end said._

_Incredulity passed quickly through Dean but when he heard police, he immediately sat up. _

"_This is Dean Williams. Why the hell did you call me if you didn't even know who I was?" Dean demanded._

"_Well, sir I am calling you about a cell phone that was found earlier this evening. Your number was the last number ever dialed. So we called you to see whose phone this might be," the officer informed him._

_Dean was suddenly very suspicious. "Since when do the police do lost-and-found?" he grumbled trying to figure out whose phone it was. _Since Sam was never without his, then it must be Dad's_ he thought. _Unless it was a client's.

"_Well, sir it was located next to a murder victim so it stands to reason that whoever was on the victims phone may know the victim, since we have no other way to determine his identity. His wallet was missing when he was found. Do you have any idea who would have you on their phone?" the officer asked. It took Dean a minute to process everything. He was almost fearful of the answer when he asked "What does this person look like?" Not sure what he was hoping or expecting for._

"_White male. Early twenties maybe. Brown hair. 6 feet maybe," the officer checked off physical characteristics that matched his little brother too well._

"_I'm… sure. It sounds a little like my brother. But I can't be sure," Dean said with dread growing in the pit of his stomach. _

"_Do you think you'd be able to come and take a look at the body?" the officer asked. The words "the body" had an ominous tone to Dean as he imagined his little brother, his Sammy lying cold on a table. The officer's voice brought him out of his reverie._

"_Mr. Winchester?... Mr. Winchester?" the officer asked, wondering what happened to the man on the other side of the conversation. The voice that finally responded sounded nothing like the one he had been talking._

"_I'll be there as soon as I can. I will call you when I get to L.A." Dean replied in a flat monotone voice and hung up before the officer could reply. Luckily he had just finished a job in Colorado. He packed his things and checked out of the motel and was off in less than 10 minutes. That had to be a record._

That was ……… hours ago and he had just reached the California border. Thoughts were racing through his head. Guilt clouded his reasoning. _I shouldn't have let him go off. He was right. I'm just a good little soldier, _one voice in his head said. Another argued back, _you couldn't know. He's the one who left. Again. _Dean shook his head, trying to get the thoughts out of his head. Instead he focused on his driving.

Finally he reached Los Angeles. He looked around for a place to pull over to call Officer Trent. He saw am old hotel building that looked like it had been recently reopened for something other than a hotel. There was an empty space in front of the hotel. In fact the only car around seemed to be an old vintage black car, not unlike his own. _Mine's better _he thought as he dialed the number that had shown up on his caller id when Officer Trent had called. The phone rang a couple times and then picked up.

"Los Angeles Police Department, how may I help you?" the haggard sounding secretary said.

"Ah, yes I need to speak to an Officer Trent," he said.

"Hold please," came her reply and then silence. He had waited a couple minutes when a knock came on his window. He saw a pretty brunette looking in, so he rolled the window down.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Huh?" he was confused, did he know her?

"You've been parked in front here for like ten minutes. I thought you may be lost," she explained, giving him a glance over. But, for once he didn't feel like flirting with the beauty in front of him. He was too worried about Sam.

"No I'm good. Just makin' a phone call. Where'd you come from anyways?" he asked. He couldn't believe that he hadn't notice someone come up to him. He had been trained to do that.

"I was in the building you're parked next to. I had a long night so I came out for fresh air and saw you sitting there," the girl prattled on. Then she seemed to really see him for once. "Is everything okay? You look kind of ragged," she asked. Dean was about to reply when a voice came over the phone.

"Officer Trent speaking," he said. Dean held up his hand to signal the girl to hold on a second. She crossed her arms and leaned against his car and eavesdropped on his conversation, purposely or not, Dean couldn't tell.

"Yes, Officer. This is Dean Winchester. We spoke on the phone. I said I would call when I got to L. A. Well, here I am. Where do I need to go? Or has the body been identified already?" he asked, almost hopeful. At the mention, the girl leaning against his car stiffened but didn't move.

"Yes, Mr. Winchester. I'm sorry but the body has not been i.d'd yet. You can come to the L. A. morgue. Do you know where it is?" Trent replied, feeling bad for the man on the phone.

"No I can probably find it. Can we meet there now? I want to get this over with," Dean said defeatedly. The officer took pity on him and agreed to meet him there in two hours.

The girl had heard Dean's side of the conversation and drew the correct conclusions from there. Dean sat there dejectedly after hanging up with the policeman. He had momentarily forgotten about the woman standing by his car until she spoke up.

"Are you okay?" she asked with true concern in her voice. She looked at the man in the car who looked close to shattering. She saw pools of tears in his eyes, but as quickly as they were there, they left. He cleared his throat, not wanting to sound upset as he answered her.

"I'm fine,' he said, a little gruffer than he wanted. He cleared his throat again before speaking again. "Do you know where the L. A. morgue is?" Try as hard as he could he couldn't keep his voice from breaking a little. The woman acted as though she hadn't heard him but instead went on.

"Not exactly. But I could look it up for you. Why don't you come in and have a cup of coffee while I do that, okay?" she said.

Dean wasn't one for trusting people. Hell, he barely let his brother in most of the time. But for some reason he trusted this woman, not completely. Hell, he wasn't that dumb. He nodded to the woman and got out of his car. He followed her inside but stopped when he entered the double doors. The lobby was huge. It was a lot better than the motels that he and Sam were prone to stop in. The thought of Sam brought him back to reality. He sobered up and followed the woman to the check-in counter. His curiosity was peaked however.

"So is this an up and running hotel?" he asked.

"Nope. It's actually a private detective agency. Welcome to Angel Investigations. By the way I'm Cordelia," she said. He turned to look at her questioningly.

"You're a P. I.?" he asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice.

"Hey! It's possible. But no I'm not," she said. A voice came from behind them.

"I am. Welcome to Angel Investigations. How can I help you?"

Dean looked around to see where it came from, cursing himself for not noticing someone coming up again. _I must be letting my worry for Sammy cloud my head. I need to focus I can't fail him again _he thought, his shoulders visually slumping before catching myself, berating himself for being weak. The man in front of him looked like he was waiting for an answer. The dude was wearing all black and his hair was everywhere. _Dude. I've never heard of a gothic P. I. before._

Angel watched the swarm of emotions fly across the face of the man before him. Sadness to anger to humor and finally to stoicism. He waited for the man to tell him what was the what when Cordelia spoke up. "He's not a client Angel," she replied with an almost warning tone to her voice, which made Dean a little suspicious. "I invited him in for a cup of coffee so I can look up a location for him."

"Oh, okay. Well it's nice to meet you…" Angel said holding his hand out to the still quiet man before him.

"Dean. Dean Williams," he said, still not fully trusting these people with his real name at least. He shook Angel's hand; it was cold. _Well, no wonder with all of these rooms. Must have one heck of a heating bill._

"Oh, and Cordy?" Angel addressed the woman who had just sat a cup of coffee in front of him. "Can I speak with you a moment?"

The two of them walked off a little ways. Dean pretended to drink his coffee as he listened in on the conversation going on between the two strangers, ready to bolt or fight, whichever was needed. Years of training and hunting had given him hearing above average.

"What are you doing Cordy? Letting someone we don't know in that isn't a client, especially with what is going on upstairs," Angel practically hissed.

"Angel! He was sitting out in his car probably freezing and when I was talking to him he got a phone call. He said somethin' about a body and asked me where the morgue is!" she hissed right back. "I couldn't just let him drive off. Cant you see how upset he is?"

"Look, Cordy with…" Angel noticed Dean almost watching them. So he turned away and spoke even softer. "With the person upstairs, the situation is delicate…" This time he was interrupted by three people coming down the stairs. "Uh, guys? Who is staying with... upstairs?"

Dean looked to see who Angel had just addressed. He saw an assortment of people walking down the stairs. There was a black guy who looked like he'd been around the block a time or two. With the black guy was a somewhat uptight looking white guy and a mousey-lookin', yet pretty, girl. The white guy responded to the question.

"Don't worry Angel. Lorne is still up there with him," he replied exasperatedly but was silenced with a look from the man.

"Who's your friend, Angel?" the girl piped up, causing the two other strangers to look Dean's way. They both looked at him suspiciously; a look which Dean was sure mirrored his own. Instead of Angel answering though, Cordelia took over. She walked over to Dean and introduced him to the others.

"Guys this is Dean Williams. He just stopped in from is _normal_ trip to get directions," she said, seeming to stress the word normal, for some reason unknown to Dean. _Yea normal. That's me_ Dean thought. _I'm so normal I just came from a "hunting" trip to see if a dead body lying on a slab is my baby brother. Okay stop this thinking Dean. _

"Hey there," he said lamely, cursing his tongue-tiedness.

"Dean," Cordelia said, interrupting his thoughts, "This is Gunn." The black man nodded.

"And Wesley."

"Hello there," greeted the Englishman.

"And Fred," Cordelia finished. The young woman waved.

"Hi There!" said Fred with a VERY obvious Texan accent. "Welcome to Angel Investigations! Why are you in L. A. I mean, you don't have to answer, obviously, but I was just wonderin' 'cause I don't too well with uncomfortable silences. I mean stick me in a lab and I'm right as rain. "Right as rain." I wonder what that really means…"

Dean thought that the girl would have prattled on if Angel hadn't interrupted her.

"Fred!" he exclaimed. "I think that'll do."

"Sorry," she said quietly. Dean felt like he had to break the silence.

"It's okay. I don't like silences either. I usually just pick on my brother when that happens," Dean said to the girl trying to make her feel better but ended up making himself feel worse at the mention of Sam. He looked down feeling the build-up of pressure behind his eyes. His father's voice came back to haunt him though.

Crying is for weak people. Are you weak? I can't let a weak person look after Sammy, _his dad said to him when he was young._ _The thought of having Sammy taken away from him had straightened Dean up faster than anything else could. Sammy was his to protect and no one else's. He had never cried since, always afraid that his dad would take Sammy away. But Sam had gone away anyways. But he came back. He always came back._

_Except this time he might not. _This thought brought him back to the present, still determined not to cry. Once he felt he had everything under control, he looked back up, only to see five very curious people staring at him. He suddenly became very uncomfortable and cleared his throat.

"So Cordelia, do you have those directions for me?" he asked, suddenly wanting to get out of there before he lost it.

"Uh, yea," she replied and walked over to the computer and got the printed directions out. But before she handed them to him, she looked at him, really looked at him. She could tell he was barely holding it together.

"Okay, here they are. But once you're done there come back here. I'll bet you don't have a place to sleep and you look like you need it," she said. The look on her face silenced both Dean's and Angel's protest. Dean wasn't one to argue with a pretty woman and he wasn't one to pass up free room and board.

"Ok thanks," he replied before heading out, unsure what to expect. As he walked out the door conversation erupted behind him but he paid it no heed. He walked to his car and drove off.

"Cordelia!" Angel exclaimed. "How could you? With all the shit going on you invite some _guy_ to stay here. Some normal guy. He could get pretty suspicious pretty fast, especially with everything going on!"

"Did you not see him Angel?" she asked. "Could you not feel the grief pouring off him? He looks like he can be as stoic as you but he came close to tears! And he's heading to the morgue for God-knows-what reason!" The questioning looks on the rest of her friends' faces led her to explain what had happened while they were upstairs.

"Fine," Angel finally agreed. "But he stays far away from…"

"ANGEL!" came a yell from the stairs. He looked up to see a green horned demon addressing him. "You'd better come quickly. Things just got worse!"

With his tome Angel didn't doubt it. The whole gang raced up the stairs to see what had happened.

As Dean pulled up to the morgue, he saw a police car already in one of the parking spots. As he walked in the entrance he took a quick look around. He was sharper than ever, even though he had been somewhat rattled with what had just been going on. He saw an older gentleman get up walk toward him. He was a little older than John Winchester, but was already graying some. He held his hand out to Dean, introducing himself.

"Lee Trent. I assume you are Dean Williams." Dean took the man's hand and nodded his affirmation.

"I don't want to be rude but can we do this?" he asked. The officer looked at him and sadly nodded his head. Dean didn't remember the walk to the room. The room where he would find out if Sam, his Sammy was laying dead on a slab, failed by his big brother, his protector. He barely heard the officer ask him if he was ready. He slowly nodded his head, not sure if he'd ever be ready. He took a deep breath as the sheet was moved from the person's face. But what was underneath took his breath away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys! Wow! I never expected to get that many reviews so quickly. I know some people think crossovers are not too good, but I thought I'd give it a try. By the way, as wild wolf free17 so kindly pointed out, I kept switching between people knowing Dean as Winchester and Dean as Williams. My oopsy! I went back and changed it all to Williams. I kind of forgot how Dean was "dead" after _Skin_ so I went back and changed it but I guess I forgot parts.**

** To MistressDarkness: I am glad I solved your problem! **

**  
To Ghostwriter: Thanks! And you'll just have to wait and see.**

** To Sensue: That is a big compliment. Thank you! And no Connor isn't in this. I **

**thought he may be hard to fit in the story.  
**

** To: Janquia: Yes it is. Yea I agree.**

** To: wild wolf free17: Thank you for pointing that out! MY BAD!**

** To: Anamalia-fear: Here's the update.**

** To: shadowhisper: I'm glad u like the way I write. Thanks for the review.**

** To: Eternal Dragon101: Thanks. I just know some don't like them.**

** To: Violet Eternity: OK**

**So here is the next part! Hope you like. Please REVIEW! BTW This story is NOT SLASH AT ALL! I think that is actually very icky, but whatever floats your boat. But it wont be in this story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Supernatural. The WB does. I think. Well whoever owns them it ain't me! Sigh, now I'm depressed………………**

Dean didn't know how he made it back to the hotel. He must have been on autopilot. Only one thought was going through his mind. _My little brother is dead. Oh, Sammy, Sammy why? _These two things were all Dean could think. He wasn't crying though. He couldn't even cry for his dead baby brother. He pulled up to the hotel, and sat in his car, thinking what had happened in the morgue.

_He barely heard the officer ask him if he was ready. He slowly nodded his head, not sure if he'd ever be ready. He took a deep breath as the sheet was moved from the person's face. But what was underneath took his breath away. There, on the table was Sam. His baby brother. At first Dean couldn't believe it. Surely there was a mistake. He strained his eyes, looking for the rise and fall of Sammy's chest indicating that he was breathing. _He can't be dead. He'sjust asleep. _But as all of these thoughts went through Dean's mind, his rationality, the part that had been trained to prevail all of his life, told him it was no use. Sam was dead. Period. End of story. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Dean looked into the questioning eyes of the older officer. Dean hesitated. If he said the words it would be true. There'd be no way to pretend it wasn't real. So, Dean just nodded his head. As he turned to look at the person on the table, he whispered, "Sammy. What happened?" Dean noticed Trent go over to talk to the medical examiner and he decided to leave. He didn't want to spend time he could use to avenge Sammy with filling out forms and answering questions. He'd hack into the medical examiner's files later. It'd be difficult though. _Sammy was always better at that computer shit than me…._ He thought as he snuck out of the office and made his way to the hotel telling himself he'd rest one night and then get busy._

Dean felt something on his cheeks as he recalled what happened. Had he missed something sneaking up on him again? He reached up but only felt wetness. Tears. He had been crying. He wiped them away. _Crying cant help me find out who did this. Crying wont bring Sammy back…_ he thought bitterly. He got out of his car and headed back to the hotel. When he entered, he didn't see anyone in the lobby or office area. Then a thought hit him. _Dad. He doesn't know, or does he?_ Dean decided to call him just in case.

The call went, as usual, to voicemail. Dean tried to keep his voice even but found that he couldn't.

"Dad its me. Sam's, oh God, Dad. Sammy's dead. I don't know how and I don't know why, but he is. I need you Dad. _He_ needs you. Please, either call me back or meet me at the old Hyperion Hotel. Please Dad." Dean hung up before any tears could spill out. It was bad enough that he sounded so weak. Crying would be unacceptable to his father.

"Hey are you okay?" he heard Cordelia ask from behind him. He forced the tears back and turned to face her. Only, it wasn't just her. It was all of them. He nodded indicating that he was fine.

"Yea I'm fine. Just finishing up a phone call. Is it still okay that I stay or do I need to go?" he asked still uncertain whether he should barge in on this- whatever it is.

The team could see his red-rimmed eyes. Each was curious but none knew how to reach out to this stranger. Cordy was about to say something when he shook his head and sat down abruptly. He didn't look too well.

"Hey, Dean. Are you okay?" she asked. But when she said this, his reaction dumbfounded her. He started to laugh. Cordelia was thoroughly confused as were the others. He continued to laugh.

"Yea, me? I'm peachy keen. I'm peachy fucking keen!" his laughter changing to anger. Anger at himself, anger at the situation, anger at Sam, and then anger for being angry at Sammy. He could tell that the others were getting concerned and he saw out of the corner of his eye that the men were moving oh-so subtley in front of the women. But he couldn't stop the rant he felt coming on. Usually, this wouldn't have built up so much because usually he had Sam to buffer his frustration on. But now he had no Sammy. This set him off even more.

"Oh sure I am great. My mother is dead; my father is who the hell knows; and the one constant in my life, the one person I could expect to always be there is now lying dead on a slab in the morgue. He died! He died alone and I wasn't there to save him this time. My baby brother, the one good thing in my life is gone!" he crumpled to the floor after all of his anger had been released. He lay on the floor sobbing, no longer being able to control the flood of tears any longer. He felt a pair of slender arms go around him but he didn't care. Sammy was gone and he had nothing left. Nothing but vengeance.

He stopped sobbing after a while but his eyes held a haunted look. A look that Angel had seen many times before. Cordelia led Dean off to a guest room, far from their problem, the young man seemingly having his own. Angel was concerned at first when Dean ahd started to yell. But when he heard what Dean was saying, Angel couldn't help but feel only pity. After settling him in Cordy came back down the stairs, seeing everyone where they were exactly when she had left.

"So….interesting night, huh?" she said to no one in particular. Everyone just nodded. Cordy looked back up the stairs he mind obviously on the troubled man upstairs. They all looked around when they heard a sniffle. It was Fred.

"It must be awful, huh? To loose your whole family and be alone…well, kinda like us but at least we have each other," she said. Look to Fred to state what everyone else was thinking.

Wes was the next to break the silence, "Yes, well seeing as our, situation upstairs has quieted for the moment, I think I shall head to my flat for a shower and some research. I should be back soon."

"Yea, me and Fred are gonna grab a bite to eat. Wanna come Cor?" Gunn asked. Cordelia, however, was still looking upstairs.

"No thanks Gunn. I'll just order in. I want to be here when he wakes up. But could you guys stop by my apartment and get a few changes of clothes for me. Angel is it okay if I stay here for a few days?" she asked looking at the vampire.

"Yea, the more the merrier. Actually," he said, warming to the idea, "that way you can run interference with Dan, Dean whatever if the situation upstairs gets difficult."

"Okay. Then its settled," Cordelia said. They all went their separate ways.

Dean couldn't sleep. Sure, he was exhausted. He hadn't slept in, what seems like forever, but everytime he closed his eyes he saw Sammy laying on the table in the morgue. He sat up as his stomach gurgled. He hadn't eaten in a long time either. He headed downstairs intent on sneaking out to grab some food. To his surprise, people were still up. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He could hear whispering and low talking as he came down the stairs. He stopped on the stairs, taking the time to observe is "supposed" benefactors. The woman, Cordelia, was beautiful. She had a killer body, but her smile is what Dean noticed. She had shoulder-length brown hair and she was classy. Even if he felt inclined to, he could never get with her. For one she was WAY out of his league. Also he had noticed the way she acted around that Angel guy. In fact the way they interacted, like now, he could tell there was something going on. _Oh man, if Sam heard me thinking this he'd accuse me of going all chick-flicky _he thought. But Sammy wasn't there, never would be. With that he walked down the rest of the way. He guessed he had been heard because both Angel and Cordelia had come out from behind the counter and approached him cautiously. He saw the look on their faces and kicked himself in the ass for acting the way he had.

"I'm fine. I was just gonna go get some grub," he said, tired sounding, even to himself.

"As chance would have it, we have some takeout here if you wanna join us," Cordy said. "Do you like Chinese?"

"I'll eat anything. You learn to with my life," he said, not really paying attention to what he said. He knew he'd need to be more careful when he heard the inevitable question asked.

"What do you do?" Angel asked, puzzled by the man's comment.

"Um, I'm a, uh, salesman," he said. It was all he could think of that would go with what he said. Usually he and Sam pose as law enforcement but that would only bring too many questions. "Me and my brother travel across the states selling…software," he added, trying to be convincing. Then he aid quietly, "I mean we travel_ed_."

Cordy looked at him sympathetically, but Angel was till curious/ suspicious.

"You don't look like a salesman," he said. Cordy shot him a look but he kept staring at the man beside him.

"I was on vacation. I decided to… go hunting," he said wryly. _Well, it's true. I was "hunting" _he thought.

"Why wasn't your brother with you?" Angel asked. But this question struck a nerve with Dean. He saw flashes of their fight in his head. He saw himself driving away from Sam, leaving his little brother behind to die.

"Let's just say we weren't getting along," Dean replied and started to eat, signaling that question and answer time was over, which was fine because Angel was satisfied, for now. He avoided Cordy's glare, knowing shed berate him for questioning the guy, but something just didn't fit. They ate in silence for the rest of the time. Dean noticed that Angel wasn't eating but he just assumed that the man had eaten before.

After Dean finished he decided to get right to work, as soon as possible. "Do you know where the nearest library is?" he asked Cordelia.

"Sure it's only like five minutes from here. Why?" she asked looking at him.

"I need to email some people and other things so I was just going to use the library's computer. My brother had our only laptop," he said.

"Oh, don't worry. You can use ours! Right Angel?" she asked with a no-nonsense look in her eyes.

"Yea sure," he mumbled. "I am going to check out that thing upstairs." He got up and left, leaving Cordy and Dean alone. Dean paid no attention to Angel though. He had that look on his face that he gets whenever he mentioned his brother's name. Cordy thought for a moment but decided to ask anyways.

"You were close to your brother?" she asked.

Dean's head jerked up at her question but answered anyways, "yea, mostly. He's my baby brother. I have to look after his sorry ass when he gets into trouble. Bitch." If Cordelia hadn't seen the reminiscent look on Dean's face as he said that she would have been appalled. She also noticed that he was still speaking in present tense, but she didn't mention it.

"I don't have any siblings. Its always been just me," she replied.

"Lucky you," he replied, but she could tell he didn't feel that way.

Cordy knew she might be pushing his limits but she felt that the more he talked about it the better he would feel. So she asked, "what was he like, your brother?"

Dean laughed, "What can you saw about little bro? He never wanted to do the family business. He wanted to go to college and get a degree in some field. I don't even remember. He and my dad are so alike that when he went to college, they ended up not talking. I didn't even think about it, but that was the last time they ever spoke to each other. Dang. What is it about us Williams? Me and my dad… last things we said to little Benny were in anger. Great family huh?" he rambled on, omitting and changing the necessary information. "Maybe if he hadn't rejoined the business he would still be here," Dean continued quietly.

"What happened?" she asked. He thought for a moment for a plausible explanation.

"Mugger. Stuck him in his gut and took off with his i.d. and money and merchandise," Dean replied. They continued quietly talking for a couple hours.

"So, can I use your computer now?" Dean asked knowing that the earlier he hacked the medical examiner's files, the sooner he could catch whatever the hell killed his brother.

"Sure go ahead," Cordy replied. "I am gonna go check on the upstairs crew."

Normally Dean would be pretty suspicious and curious as to what was going on upstairs but he had one goal in mind- finding Sammy's killer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to update, but school is getting a little hectic. Thank y'all SOO much for all of the reviews. A couple of people pointed out that when Dean was talking to Cordy he said the name Benny. He said this because he still doesn't trust them enough with real names. So Benny is supposed to be Sam. Just another alias. **

**To saiyuki123: Thanks!**

**To Sensue: You'll have to see about AI getting a team member. And Sammy a vamp? Hmm…. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe, we'll see MWAH-AH-AH-AH!**

**To Eternal Dragon101: Thanks and you have to be one of the few people that actually accept Sammy's death!**

**To willofthering: Thanks for the compliment. I was hoping I wasn't making people act weird. If Angel starts rapping or Dean starts baking, STOP ME! LOL**

**To Adara-chan15: Thanks for putting me on your list. And they say that denial is the first stage of grief. Maybe he is, Maybe he isn't. ****sniggers**

**To Anamalia-fear: Well, I dunno if the crying thing is a good thing or not, but I am going to take it as a compliment.**

**To Transgenic-girl: There's the vamp thing again. Maybe I will now that y'all mentioned it… And can you blame Angel for not believing them? Have you ever seen any salesmen as hot as Dean and Sam? If so, I wanna live where you do.**

**To Ghostwriter: Thankee**

**To Immortal Spy: Yea its pretty heavy. But don't worry you'll get answers soon enough!**

**Thanks to all who read and double thanks to my reviewers.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything except 74 cents and a piece of lint.**

Dean was confused. He had hacked his way into the medical files from the morgue, after a lot of difficulty. He had found Sam's pre-autopsy report. Apparently, L.A. had quite a lot of deaths and the morgue was backed up, so Sammy had yet to be autopsied. The preliminary findings were troubling at best. There was no obvious sign of death that the medical examiner could find. Apparently, Sam's body was as healthy as a horse, except for the being dead part. Dean sat back rubbing his eyes. He had been at this computer for hours and he hadn't even slept the day or two before. In fact, Dean couldn't remember what day it was. He had been going on pure nerves for awhile. He had hacked the police computer system as well and had found out where Sam had been found. As soon as he got a shower and changed, he was going to head out to that place to see if he could find any clues. He headed up to his room. He never made it to the shower. He collapsed on the bed and fell straight to sleep.

It was night when he woke up. He silently cursed himself for sleeping for so long. He grabbed some clean clothes and headed to the shower. The hot water and soap refreshed him. He headed out of his room, ready to face whatever was thrown his way. He headed down the stairs and to the lobby. It was deserted. _Good. No one to get in my way. But I wonder where they are_ he thought. He cast a glance up the stairs but went on ahead anyways. He got into his Impala and drove away.

Sam had been found in a dirty alley in "the bad part of town." Dean had found out how to get there while on the computer. He arrived at the dark place and got out. A weaker person may have waited until sunrise but Dean's need to do justice was overcoming any fear he felt. But Dean wasn't stupid. Before he went any where near that alley, he got some supplies from the trunk of his car. Flashlight, pistol, shotgun with rock-salt bullets and he was set. He turned the flashlight on and headed in to the alley.

Besides the disgusting garbage and such that one would expect to find in an old alley, the first thing that Dean noticed was scorch marks all along the walls. _Hmm what did that?_ He thought. A movement to his right stopped all thought. He raised his shotgun and shone his flashlight in the direction of the movement. It wasn't a monster though. It was a rat. Dean almost wished it was a monster, he hated rats. He looked all through the alley. The only other suspicious thing that he found besides the scorches was an area in the alley where herbs were scattered around. On closer inspection, they were herbs that could be used in magic incantations and such. This made Dean wonder if it had something to do with his brother's demise. He gathered some up and stuck them in a bag, in case he needed to examine them later. He left the alley and decided to take a walk around to see if there was anyone around that he could question about what had happened.

As Dean was walking he heard a scuffle going on around the corner. He snuck up cautiously, not wanting to get involved in something that he had no business or stake in. He looked around and saw two guys locked in combat. One was black and the other was white. But the white guy was different. Dean couldn't quite put his finger on it but then he saw his, no its, face. _A vampire? Shit, I don't have any holy water or a stake on me _he thought. But regardless of his lack of firepower, he leapt into the fray when he noticed the black guy slowly tiring out. If he didn't act soon, there'd be one less fighter around. The vampire was momentarily confused at the entrance of another enemy. This second was all the time that the black guy needed to stab him right in the heart with a sharp piece of wood. He stood there panting as the vamp dusted to the ground. He looked up to see the white guy that had distracted the vamp looking at him.

"I could have gotten him," was all that the black guy said. Then he started to walk off. But Dean wasn't about to let him get away; this guy was the first person Dean had seen and was willing to bet that he'd been here before. Dean stepped in front of him.

"Ok, fine whatever. I don't care that you don't care that I just saved your ass. I need to ask you something," Dean said.

"Sorry, no can do. Wish I could help," the guy replied. He tried to walk off again but was slammed up against the wall by a very angry man.

"Listen jackass. My brother was found dead, in the alley right down there. Now I'm only gonna ask this once. You seen anything, punk?" Dean said, seething with anger.

The black guy knew that if he was going to get back to his crib anytime soon he might as well answer this guy's question. "Yea I remember that. I wasn't there," he hastily said at the look in the man's eyes. "Look all I remember is some guy screamin and then like a bunch of lights flashing and then everything was quiet. That was some freaky shit. man."

"Okay, thanks man," Dean said as he released the punk.

"Ya know what?" the punk piped up. "I know who can help you wich yo' problem."

"Who?" Dean asked, desperate for any information.

"There's this guy who helps people who have, ya know, _problems._ Weird problems," he said.

"And who might that be?" Dean asked.

"Here I got this flyer. Took it down if I needed it. Here," the guy said as he handed Dean the piece of yellow paper. Dean watched the punk walk away before looking at the flyer. What he saw there was something he never expected.

Dean walked back into the Hyperion Hotel cautiously. He looked around for any sign of life. Seeing none, he took a few steps in and listened for any movement coming from the office. Glancing at the stairs he crept into the office. As he searched through the office, he reflected on what he had learned in that alley.

_The flyer that the stranger gave him shocked him beyond words. On the bracingly yellow piece of paper was a symbol in the middle of the page. It was a bug, or something, Dean couldn't tell. But the name surrounding the questionable figure was one he recognized. The flyer was an advertisement for a private investigator, one who dealt in supernatural occurrences. It said "Angel Investigations, where we help the helpless. Have a problem that is strange or unexplainable? Explain it to us and we can take care of it. No job is too big or too small, we work them all." Then it gave an address and phone number. The address was the same as the Hyperion Hotel. _How could something like this get past me?_ Dean had thought. He had racked his brain, as he drove back to the hotel, looking for any sign that Angel and the others knew "what goes bump in the night." The only thing he could think of was the secrecy they had when it came to whatever was upstairs. As he pulled up in front of the hotel, he wondered what was the best way to go about this situation, confrontation or investigation. He decided on investigation because he didn't want to go in shouting without all of the facts. The fact that he really had nothing to shout about never crossed his mind._

So here he was, snooping through the offices looking for some sign that the flyer was real and not some stupid prank by a stupid punk. Nothing he had found so far had confirmed the flyer. But then again all he had found were supply requests that were normal for an office. When he was done in that cabinet he went to the file cabinet beside it. It was locked which immediately roused his suspicious. Of course there was no lock that had been made that could stay locked when a Winchester decided he wanted it open. Dean and Sam had taught how to pick locks when they were VERY young. Today was no different. The filing cabinet unlocked and Dean opened it up, more than curious. He pulled out the top drawer and looked in. It was full of case files for the agency. Each had a name on it. The names were very normal sounding, which caused Dean to second guess the information he was given. He reached in and grabbed one of the files at random. It had a woman's name on it, but Dean didn't take the time to really read the name. In the file was the information he had been searching for. The file described how a woman had come to them and showed them how she had been infected by a demon. It turns out the demons were her band and the Angel team had gone in and slaughtered them.

Almost dumbfounded, Dean put the file up. Sure he had seen the flyer but he had not actually expected it to be true. He closed that drawer and headed over to the filing cabinet that was closer to the desk. He figured that the open files would probably be there. But before he got there something lying on the desk caught his attention. It looked familiar so he sat down and reached for it. It was a wallet. When he opened it, no other person that his baby brother sat there looking up at him. It was Sam's wallet. _What is Sammy's wallet doing here?_ He thought as he flipped through. Fake ids and credit cards took up so much room that the wallet looked ready to burst. He finished flipping through when he looked down and saw other things below it. There were Sam's fake badges and "official" id's. He glanced around the room, confused. He had come here to see if these people would actually be able to help him find his brother's murderer. And now this? He didn't know what to make of it.

As he was glancing around he noticed a cabinet hanging on the wall. _Weird_ he thought as he headed over to see what it was. Dispensing of the lock in short order, he opened the double doors. In the cabinet was the biggest herb collection he had ever seen, even more than Missouri had had. The herbs got him to thinking. He reached into his pocket and brought the bag from the alley out. He cleared a spot on the desk and poured out the contents of the bag. He sifted through the contents, mentally marking those herbs found in the mix. He didn't like the way his thoughts were going but he had to know. Once he thought he had noted all of the herbs, he strode over to the hanging cabinet. Sure enough, the herbs that had been in the mix were ALL located in the cabinet. He just stood there, anger and confusion racing through his mind. He was so astonished that he didn't notice the whole team of Angel Investigations coming in.

Angel was first in the office. He was chuckling at something that Fred had said and didn't immediately notice the disarray in the office. Then he stopped and looked around after hearing Cordy gasp. HE took in the open filing cabinet drawers, the papers shoved haphazardly on the desk and the herb cabinet open with an utterly shell-shocked looking man standing in front of it. Angel's immediate reaction was, of course anger.

"What the hell?" Angel said in a very tight sounding voice. "Would you care to explain?" Angel may have expected embarrassment at being caught or sheepishness, but nothing prepared him for the absolute fury that Dean had in his eyes. Neither that nor the punch in the face was what Angel expected.

"You!" was all that Dean yelled before launching himself at Angel, who had barely flinched at his punch.

Angel was more concerned for his well-being than Dean's so he neatly deflected Dean which sent the man flying into the lobby. He watched as the man lay there, hoping that he had given up, because Angel really didn't feel like killing anyone tonight. But Dean got up. Angel didn't realize just how stubborn the Winchester men could be. Dean began to use his head this time. He didn't attack right away. But no matter how much he used strategy, he couldn't stop the words pouring out of his mouth. "It was you! You all along!"

"ME? What did I do?" Angel asked, becoming even more confused. "YOU attacked ME! Remember?" Maybe this guy really was messed up in his head.

"Yea I attacked you," Dean said smugly. "But you killed my brother! Because of you, my Sammy is GONE!"

Angel had been steadily moving towards Dean in an effort to maybe calm the younger man down. But at Dean's accusation he stopped.

"Dean that's ridiculous! Angel didn't kill you brother. He couldn't," Cordy shouted. "Now calm down and we can explain about what you saw in the office."

"Explain to me?" Dean said disbelievingly. "Explain to me about demons and spirits and things that go bump in the night?"

"I know it sounds strange but it's true," Wesley said soothingly.

"Oh save it Stuffy," Dean said scathingly. "I've known about this stuff since I was four!" Nothing you can say can shock me! But what you can explain to me is why my little brother's things are in that office. Why do you have his id's?" As he said this he took the moment that the others were using to process the shock of this to get a good swing into Angel's face. Angel's head snapped back, but when he brought it back around, his face was different. Angel had vamped out.

Dean was speechless for a second. "Guess I was wrong about the whole 'can't shock me thing' huh? A vamp huh? Come on then you thing!" he shouted at Angel. As he did he looked around for a weapon of sorts. Then he remembered about the rock-salt pistol still in his pants. Before Angel could do or say anything, Dean whipped it out and pulled the trigger. He knew that salt wouldn't do anything to the vampire, but as Sammy said at the asylum, "It'll hurt like hell." Angel grunted with pain as it hit him and sent him flying back. Dean smirked as he hit the floor. His smirk faded though as Angel got back up. Angel had had enough of this and could only think of one way to end this without one of them dying.

This time it was Dean who had no time to think before Angel had leapt over the couch in the middle of the lobby, and landed a solid punch on the man's face. Dean was out cold before he hit the floor, at the mercy of his brother's killers.

**By the way, I have noticed around the site mentions of a Mary Sue chicky. Now I have been watching from the beginning but I have no idea who this is. Can someone help me out here?**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Omigosh, guys I am so sorry. I have NO excuse for letting this take so long. It was just a combination of school, writer's block, laziness, family drama, etc. I actually wouldn't blame y'all if no one was even reading or waiting on this anymore.**

**NOTE: Ok so guys this is a major AU. In case you can't remember (which may not be a problem since you will have to reread the first 3 chapters –sorry again!!) this story changes everything from when the brothers split up in "Scarecrow". Everything after that fight scene is different. No Meg, No Scarecrow-Savin'-Sammy, Absolutely nothing from Season 2, unless I can work it out somehow. I will try to work in what we know, but no guarantees.**

**OK on with the story. Again, I am SO SORRY it has taken so long to get started back up.**

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_Two Weeks earlier….._

Los Angeles.

The City of Angels.

Right now, Sam just wished it could be the City of Signs; because he was utterly and completely lost. Of course had Dean or his dad been there, Sam would have rather died than admit that. Because being lost was being a failure at navigation. And right now, Sam was sick of being a failure in his family's eyes. Hell, he couldn't even find a motel or a library or, if he stopped to think about it, a road. _Whoa! When did I lose all the roads?_ he thought to himself. Now there was no doubt in Sam's mind that he was a failure, except at one thing. This one time HE was going to save his brother, instead of Dean saving him. Dean had _always_ been there for him and he had always failed at repaying in kind. This time, though, he had no choice but to succeed, because this time, Dean's life was on the line.

So far, Sam thought he was doing a pretty good job. Except the being lost part. And Dean was pretty pissed at him, but Dean _didn't _know about the nightmares Sam had been having. Nightmares where Dean died here in L.A. His brother thought he was searching for their wayward father, which had been easy enough to sell when put together with his revenge-orientated attitude since Jess's death. After they split, he had hitchhiked to the nearest bus station— which was NOT very near— and took a serious of buses all the way to L.A. Another part of his brilliant plan was slipping Sacramento into the argument. So even if Dean were to come looking for him, he would do so in Sacramento not L.A. Sam was bound and determined to keep his big brother out of Los Angeles.

So here the youngest Winchester was, wandering back alleys of L.A. searching for any indication of where he was or any sign of life besides rats. Sam chuckled to himself as he thought of Dean in his position, surrounded by rats. He was pretty sure Dean would be wishing for some sort of spirit or creature, as long as it wasn't a rat. His brief self-amusement was ruined when he sensed someone, or something, behind him. He kept walking as nonchalantly as he could, while slowly reaching to the gun stashed in the back of his pants with one hand and the other grasping a flashlight he kept in the pocket of his jacket. He whipped around, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, one arm crossed over the other.

Nothing was there.

Keeping his guard up, Sam turned slowly back around. After staying in this position trying to see past the meager light his flashlight provided, he finally could tell that someone was approaching in front of him. And behind him. Ok make that surrounding him.

_Oh crap._

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**A/N 2: Sorry this is so short, but its more of a feeler to see if anyone is still reading. I also want to thank everyone who kept up hope for this story. And to EVERYONE who reviewed. Updates may be slow, but not non-existent. Thanks again and if you would like this story to continue click the likkle purple button and let me know!!!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Ok so I started this story before I got to "Dead Man's Blood" so ignore everything that Supernatural said about vampires. They can be killed by: wooden stake in the heart, sunlight, fire. They are repelled by crosses (most are) and holy water. Same deal in BTVS and Angel if you know those shows. Also they turn to dust after re-killed. **

**Sorry there's not a lot of involvement from the AI Team but we will get there.**

**Ok so here is the next installment.**

Sam was surrounded, by a bunch of guys….with messed up faces.

_Vampires, great. Well this gun is useless_, he grimly thought as surveyed the group of curiously-still vampires. But Sam wasn't exactly weaponless; he was a Winchester after all. Looking around, he finally spotted what he needed. A large stack of wooden crates was piled next to the wall in the alley. Sam knew that if he could only get to the stack of crates he could make his very own stakes. Stakes he could use to dust the surrounding blood-suckers. The only thing still worrying him (besides the odds of one of him to ten of them) was that the vamps hadn't moved since completely surrounding him. It felt like they were waiting for something, or maybe someone.

Well, Winchesters weren't exactly known for their patience. Sam slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and grasped the flask of holy water he had taken to carrying around since his first vampire encounter. Just as he was going to fling it in the face of the closest vampire, the screeching of tires sounded behind them, followed closely by a wooden arrow speeding past his head and into the heart of a vampire in front of him. Sam didn't know where it came fro but he knew better than to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and not take confusion of the confusion that it caused. He proceeded to douse the vamp closest to him with holy water full in the face followed by a right hook. With that vamp out of commission, Sam proceeded to bust up a wooden crate, creating himself a couple of stakes. Grabbing one in each hand, he shifted his attention to the fight. He now noticed the five people-people not vamps- that had arrived about the time the screeching tires had. Coupled with the spiked up truck haphazardly parked, Sam assumed they were a group of vampire hunters, even though most looked younger than him. Quickly disposing of a vamp about to attack on his left, Sam leapt into the fray. A jab here, an uppercut there, and Sam had staked another vamp. Feeling better about the 6 to ten ratio now, Sam let himself get lost in the thrill of the hunt and the rush of adrenaline only this job could give. The vamps were quickly dwindling and Sam found himself searching for another one to kill. This mini-hunt was what Sam needed as he released some of his frustration, anger, and hurt. All but one vamp were dust, and this one seemed to be tough, keeping himself from being staked now that the tide had turned in their favor. A black guy was struggling with him at the moment, and wasn't making any headway. Sam reacted on instinct and hoped that the dude would listen to him.

"DROP!!" he yelled and, taking the pointed end, hurled his stake at the vamp

For a brief second Sam thought he may have made a mistake, as he didn't think the kid would listen to him. But he ducked just as the stake flew over his head and pierced the vamp's non-beating heart, turning the un-dead fiend into a pile of dust.

With no vamps for distraction, all eyes turned to Sam. Before he knew what was happening, he was pinned up against the wall by two of the young kids, angry scowl on their faces.

"What're you doin' you crazy punk?" one of the guys holding him asked. This guy was older than some of the others; in fact, he looked only a few years younger than Sam. He was black, bald, and had that cynical, weathered look about him. Another shove to the chest brought Sam back to the situation at hand. Mentally he both kicked his own ass—for letting them get the drop on him— and laughed at them for needing two people to pin him down. Of course, he wasn't John Winchester's son for nothing.

Each of the punks had a hand on one of his shoulders. Sam knew that if he were to really try anything, he could get away with ease, which was good since that was exactly what he planned on doing. Sam tensed his body waiting for just the right moment to show these punks what a Winchester really is. Just as the older guy opened his permanently-scowled mouth again, Sam sprang into action.

Quick as lightning, Sam reached out with his "freakishly long" legs (as Dean calls them), swept the younger kid's feet out from under him— sending him sprawling backwards— while simultaneously reaching up with one hand to grab the arm of the older guy, then spinning him around and shoving him face first into the brick wall—one hand twisting his arm backwards, the other pinning the opposite shoulder hard up against the wall. The guy was flush against the wall, his face turned to one side and smashed against the hard, unforgiving stone wall.

Everyone stilled and tenseness settled over the mismatch group. No one made a move to stop Sam or help either of their own people. Sam, himself, kept one eye on the struggling guy he had pinned to the wall and the other on the dude's lackeys. Most of them had expressions of anger and suspicion with a dash of wariness, but, still, none of them moved. Sam held the guy there another couple moments, to help remind the guy exactly who had the upper hand. Then, almost as suddenly as he had pinned the guy, Sam let him go, backing away with both hands raised in the universal symbol of "Dude, chill."

He took this moment to look over the rest of the motley crew of strangers. Besides the two guys who had pinned him (or attempted to), there were three other people: another black guy whose eyes were darting all around nervously taking in everything he possible could, a white guy who was scowling and gripping a crossbow tightly, and a Mexican girl who, if possible, looked both nervous and bored. Sam's perusal of the group traveled over the previous three, the young black guy still sprawled on the ground, finally settling on the oldest guy in the group who had just righted himself off of the alley wall and stood glaring at Sam. Sprawled-Out-Kid finally got off the ground and was looking warily between the older guy and Sam. The older guy started forward, as if to attack Sam again. Sam couldn't believe the nerve of this guy.

"Do you not remember what just happened Wall-Boy?" Sam taunted, raising his hands to defend himself if need be.

"You caught me by surprise!" Wall-Boy growled back. "That ain't gunna happen twice."

"Also I managed to do it while _two_ of you were holding me down," Sam warned again. "Look, you back off and I'll back off, deal?"

Wall-Boy looked reluctant to take that deal— and very interested in trying to beat Sam's ass— until the girl spoke up. No longer scared at all, she exasperatedly said, "C'mon Marcus. I wanna get back sometime tonight."

When Wall-Boy, or Marcus as he was apparently named, turned to glare in her direction, she wasn't even fazed. She just rolled her eyes and kept on talking. "Oh please, that 'I'm going to kill you' death-glare won't work on me. So stop with the Neanderthal antics and accept the fact that he just saved your ass."

Marcus looked like he was going to strangle her, and it took everything Sam had to keep himself from bursting out in laughter. Although, keeping it in seemed to make him light-headed. Actually, he was really dizzy.

The last thing he saw before hitting the ground was five expressions of confusion.


	6. Chapter 6

Hey guys! Well here's the next chapter! (If any one is still reading this)

Sorry it took so long, but with school and work and church… UGH! I'm sure most of you can sympathize! Just to let you know, the chapters may keep being slow until the semester is over. After that I will hopefully be able to crank them out more and more. (Especially since I am like overflowing with other ideas).

So, here it is. I would really appreciate any feedback you would like to share: criticism or support. Flames welcome (but I'll just stomp them out…) There is some cursing in it so beware!!

OH! And this chapter is dedicated to Samantha-dean and SilverStorm06 for their reviews last chapter!

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The first thing to penetrate the fog surrounding Sam was voices. Nothing specific, just a low mumbling that didn't make any sense. At first Sam thought that he and Dean had fallen asleep with the TV going again. But then the past few days came rushing back to him and his eyes popped open. Or they tried to. It felt like lead weights were attached to each of his eyelids, weighing them down. After a few minutes of trying to force them to open, they finally opened. The first thing he saw was the ceiling of an unfamiliar and obviously, even from just the ceiling, old building. He sat up as far as his aching body would allow him. Specking of aching… _What happened?_ he thought. _Why am I hurting like this?_ That is when the memory penetrated his foggy brain and the adrenaline-cloaked memory.

_Feeling better about the 6 to ten ratio now, Sam let himself get lost in the thrill of the hunt and the rush of adrenaline only this job could give._

_He had staked two more vampires before they seemed to get their heads together and began to fight back. The next vamp that Sam turned to fight decided to put up fight before he was able to fit inside an ashtray. This vamp was also prepared._

_Sam was surprised when the vamp pulled out a knife, one that could almost rival any machete that Dean had. Sam was too far gone, though, to care much. He was careful, of course but sometimes the bad guys get lucky. They had each landed a few hits on one another— the vamp's hits hurt more because of the stupid 'I'm-dead/alive-AND-I-get-super-strength' crap. But when the vampire pulled out his knife Sam was got lucky. The knife didn't go ALL the way into him. But it did go in and it hurt like a bitch. But it also brought the vamp within staking range. So Sam staked him and went on to the next, almost forgetting about his wound._

_The vamps were quickly dwindling and Sam found himself searching for another one to kill…._

Damn Dean would have kicked his ass if he had pulled that stunt with him. _Of course Dean cant get mad since you left him_ a nasty voice in his mind said. The memory of Dean's hurt face when he left him flashed in front of his eyes, but Sam quickly pushed it away. To get away from that awful memory, he instead focused on wherever the heck he was.

Having spent enough time in them— its where his dad would work if staying in one place for a few weeks at a time— Sam could recognize a auto-shop anywhere. And that would include where he was now. It was obviously abandoned and turned into a refuge for runaways, but the walls, layout, and oil stains gave it away. In fact this one looked a lot like the one his dad had worked in when he was a senior in high school and they had moved to a little town outside Memphis, Tennessee.

All around the (mostly) one-room building were people. Sam guessed that that was where all the talking he had heard was coming from— and still coming from. There were people of a wide range of ages and races. Well not too wide with the ages, but there were Latinos, blacks, whites, a few Oriental. Everybody seemed to be going about their own business; some were joking around while others seemed to be doing almost domestic-type duties. There was even a group of kids whittling stakes and sharpening knives in one of the corners.

Sam noticed a few familiar faces amongst the crowd— some of the kids who had been in the vampire hunt the previous night— _Was that even last night? How long have I been out? _— but he didn't see Marcus (a.k.a. Wall-Boy) or the girl anywhere. Finally his awakening was noticed and someone yelled for Marcus and Sandy— whoever the hell that was.

From one of the only two other rooms Marcus and the chick from last night emerged. They stopped to talk to one guy. Sam was far enough away to not be able to hear what they guy was saying to Marcus, but there was no doubt that they were talking about him, what with them looking at him off and on. He couldn't tell what was up from their expressions, which was weird for him. Here was a guy that could tell, usually, what Dean Winchester, stoic extraordinaire, was feeling. Thoughts of Dean and facial expressions pained Sam, so he turned his thoughts back to the strangers, who had apparently taken care of him, despite earlier "disagreements". The strangers who were now coming this way.

Sam struggled to sit up as they approached him, pushing past the pain and aches to alleviate his somewhat embarrassing position. He hated to look weak in front of anyone: Dad, Dean, even Jess. A memory came out of nowhere, slamming into him like a freight train:

_He felt like crap. Crap that had been stepped on, set on fire, and stepped on again. So why was he currently walking to class instead of laid up in the bed, having a hot blonde feeding him soup?_

_Because he was a Winchester,and Winchesters are, as a rule, damn stubborn. Besides, he and Jess had just had their first fight: she thought he was sick, he said he was fine, she insisted, and he had balked._

"_Geez, Jess. Get a grip! I'm fine _and _I'm going to class" followed by the slamming of the front door— this echoed in his mind as he continued to shuffle down the path to the Psychology building._

_He hadn't made it far._

_Jess told him later that he had collapsed on the sidewalk. Lucky for him though, some guy—he said he was a visiting professor—came along about that time, and got him back to his apartment. He and Jess didn't fight again for awhile after that._

From Jess's description and the knowledge gained when working the Native American curse job, Sam knew now that it was his dad that had carried him back to his place.

Someone plopping next to him brought him out of his long-repressed memory. Marcus was staring at him, not without distrust but definitely with less hostility than he had in the alley. Sandy had followed him over and it was she that broke the silence first. And silence it was; the whole room seemed to be watching them.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, looking over him critically, but without the big-brother radar that Dean seemed to have—the one that could zero in on any wound and any wince of pain.

But that question seemed to be only able to garner one answer from anyone with the last name Winchester.

"I'm fine."

Sam couldn't help but take in the many faces that were staring at him. It was Marcus, surprisingly, that seemed to notice Sam's shifted attention. He glared at their "audience" who promptly, at the glare, turned back to their own business. Sam felt minutely better for that, but he was still among a bunch of strangers with a stab wound from a vampire, separated from his older brother because of a vision and a stupid fight, with a missing father, and a dead mother and dead girlfriend.

Sure, he was just peachy-fucking-keen.

He was broken out of his musings—which had been happening more and more frequently lately— by Sandy's voice. She was asking him how he was. Again.

"I said I'm fine," Sam growled out, pushing himself to push himself up, sick of laying down like an invalid among these people. Sheer stubbornness and Winchester will were the only things keeping him upright once he got there. Intent on ignoring the pain, he turned to Sandy, "How bad?"

"Not bad," she replied, checking the bandage on his left side. "It was more of a slice than a stab, but it did need stitches."

Sam winced as she checked the stitches but allowed no other indication of pain to cross his face. Finally, Sandy seemed to be finished prodding and probing him and stepped back to let Marcus take over. Sam gave a small smile—more of a quick up-turning of the corners of his mouth— to Sandy as she sat down beside him.

Sam looked warily up at Marcus as he stood in front of him staring down. Just as Sam was really starting to miss his "freaky-ass height" (another Dean quote), the scowling guy spoke, "To rephrase my first question," he started— 'rephrase' spoken mockingly and with a look at Sandy— "What were you doin' walkin' around in the middle of the night?"

Sam glared right back (up) at him. Adopting an old Winchester standard—_Boys, you ever get caught with your pants around your ankles, tell the truth. Not the whole truth, just enough to get them off your ass_—he answered, "Got lost."

If possible, Marcus's scowl only got more pronounced. "What 'chu doin' in L.A.?"

"Lookin for someone."

"Who?"

"Family friend." (It was true enough. Dad is sort of a "friend" to him and Dean)

"What for?"

"Help him out."

"With what?"

"A job."

"What kind of job?"

"One that's not 9 to 5."

_That_ earned him a snort instead of a question. A snort followed by an appraising look. "How'd you know how to waste vamps?" And yet another question.

Fed up with the interrogation, Sam snapped back, "How do you?"

Marcus looked ready to hit Sam at that, and Sam would have willingly humiliated him again at that point, knife wound or no. But Sandy intervened before either could happen. (_Darn the luck_)

"Look," she said, gesturing around her. "What you see is pretty much is what you get."

Sam _did_ look around. He saw not a person older than Dean; some still darting their eyes over to Sam—the stranger in their midst— every few seconds.

"Most of us are orphans or runaways. Our families are gone or as good as."

"So what we need to know," Marcus broke in, "is if we saved your scrawny ass and put our family in danger in the same move."

Sam was taken aback for a second at their candor, but rushed to assure them, "I'm not a threat to any of you. And thanks for patching me up."

"I'd like to think that," Marcus said, surprisingly sincerely, "but I can't take that chance. You can understand that can't you?"

Sam thought back to his childhood: the strategically placed weapons (_shoot first ask questions later_), the salt-lined entryways, and the password barred door. Yea he could understand that.

"I grew up around this stuff," he said looking around at some of the younger kids, wondering if they would come to resent the life that had been pushed into, like he used to. "My dad was, is, a hunter. My brother and me, we kinda went along for the ride, and never got off the track." He didn't bother to mention his car _had_ gotten off the track for about four years. Because it didn't matter. Not anymore, which surprised him. When did he stop caring that he was never going to get that normal "apple-pie" life?

"A hunter?" Marcus asked, looking almost confused.

Sandy was the one to answer him, before Sam could even understand what had confused Marcus. "Oh! I know about hunters. They're kind of like us only they go after more than just vamps. Right?" she said and turned to Sam to make sure she was right.

"Uh, yea," Sam replied, realizing that not everyone in the supernatural community knew about hunters. "Yea, we take on spirits, poltergeists, incorporeal demons…stuff like that."

"Incorporeal demons?" It was Marcus who asked but Sandy looked just as confused.

"Sure," Sam said, his lecture voice coming out—one that Dean absolutely hated. "Have you ever heard of a fyarl demon?"

Both of them nodded and actually looked interested—which made Sam almost giddy (_geez I'm a dork_).

"Well, a fyarl demon is a corporeal demon. They can be killed with physical methods: an axe, fire, whatever is their weakness. Incorporeal demons do not have their own physical bodies, at least not in our dimension. They are forced to possess the body of a human to exist in our reality. The only way, really, to get rid of them is an exorcism. There are many different kinds of exorcism rituals. And just like vampires, holy water hurts them. However, any physical harm you do to the demon while they possess a person, that physical harm is transferred onto the person that is possessed."

Sam finished his demon lecture with two people—actually the whole room but Sam chose to ignore that— looking at him with odd expressions on their faces. Sam could feel the burn of embarrassment on his cheeks. He stammered out, "Sorry, I tend to get carried away with stuff like that…"

He sat there looking sheepishly up through his bangs. He was startled when a loud, booming laugh broke out from the guy before him—a guy he thought incapable of doing anything but scowling. A laugh that seemed to echo all around the room, infecting any and everyone that heard it. Except Sam, because he had no clue _what_ was so funny. The tension in the room had dramatically decreased when most of the laughing had subsided, a few odd chuckles and giggles escaping every once in a while as everyone—this time for real—turned back to their own business.

In the process of laughing his ass off, Marcus had dropped to the end of Sam's pallet, chuckling now. Sam still didn't get what was so funny and he shot a look at Sandy, hoping she could let him in on the obviously hilarious joke. She, however, just gave him a shrug that said _I dunno either, but what're you gonna do?_ and turned back to Marcus. Sam followed her gaze. Maybe Marcus could shed some light on the situation. Marcus saw his questioning look and, with a few more chuckles, decided to give the guy a break.

"Dude, you're like a supernatural encyclopedia!" Marcus explained, laughing once again—this time without the participation of _everyone_.

The words were so Dean and the voice not his; Sam actually had trouble breathing for a second. Sandy noticed the flash of pain (_notphysicalpain_) in his eyes and the catch in his breath, and she leaned over to check on him. What she didn't expect is for _him_ to start laughing, just as inappropriately and bizarrely as Marcus had just done. His laughter didn't last long though. He sat there with his head in his hand, his shoulders shaking with laughter (_or was it sobs?_) for a few minutes. She thought she heard him say a name, "Dan" or "Dean" maybe even "Dad." She couldn't tell and had no chance to catch anymore words before Sam was recovered and looking at her like he hadn't just cracked a little.

Finally, all chuckling subsided and all three sat in quiet contentment for a moment. But the moment was soon over, when Sam realized that throughout this whole crazy thing he still hadn't even told them his name. So now he had a choice to make. He could tell these people—the people who had helped him against a bunch of vampires and took him in and treated his wound without even knowing him— he could tell them his real name, or he could stick with the time honored tradition of Winchesters and lie. He decided to do of both, sort of.

Eventually it was Sam who broke the silence. "By the way, I'm Sam," he said looking at the two people near him.

The startled looks on their faces had him laughing again. Their expressions said it all—they hadn't even realized that they didn't know his name. All three had another good laugh at that. For a bunch of people whose situation was pretty grim, they sure did laugh a lot that afternoon. Maybe it was Sam's presence or the change from the monotony they were used to, but the air was lighter than it had been.

* * *

The next couple weeks, for Sam, were spent recuperating from his wound and teaching the motley crew, most of whom he had grown fond of, about the things that hunters, like him, hunted: spirits, wendigos, demons (both kinds) among other "things that go bump in the night." He also trained with lots of the guys— a sort of physical therapy to loosen up the muscles slagging during recuperation and to show off a little (he _is_ a guy) — and he taught the girls some moves to do too. Not that these girls were lacking in self-defense, they couldn't afford to living as they did, but he taught them moves that used minimal power with maximum hurt. After all he had had to know moves like that when he was younger, because Dean and his dad couldn't _always_ look after him, not that they didn't try.

But the weeks passed quietly and quickly and Sam almost forgot why he had even come to this city to begin with. But life has a way with catching up with you, especially with the Winchesters.

The quiet evening that had become routine in the old shop—weapon-making, Sam teaching about the monster of the week, and general lounging— was broken by the slamming of the main door as a body fell into the room.


	7. Chapter 7

YAY!!!! Chapter 7 is here!! Go me, Go me! does victory dance And for all those who wonder, yes I know I am a loser. lol.

Seriously though, here is Chapter 7. I hope you like!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all. Anywhere. :(

PLEASE READ A/N at bottom!!!!

* * *

This chapter is dedicated to the anonymous reviewer Raven! Thanks! Your review really got my butt in gear to finish this!

* * *

The room erupted with noise: shouts, cries, and low-roar mumbling by fearful voices. Sam leapt into action, heading straight to the still figure laying on the floor in front of the door. He knew that Marcus would calm and organize the panicking group— he was the "leader" after all— and, since Sam was one of the most adept of the group at first aid, he knew it would be best if he used his time with the injured person.

The kid who fell in was José. Sam had actually become friends with teenage Mexican boy pretty fast. José was often Sam's sparring partner when he had first begun to do so after his wound had healed enough to be up and about. Sam had grown fond of the kid fast.

Sam reached José about the same time as his sister Catalina, Cati for short. First things first, he felt José's neck, looking for a pulse. Sighing with relief as he found one, he began to look over the kid's body for any open wounds or blood. Cati was freaking out at this time, so Sam got her to help with the search—to calm her down if nothing else.

The only thing he really found was a large bump on the back of his head, only a little crusty with blood. Feeling it was safe to move José now, Sam called out for a couple of the older, bigger guys to help move the unconscious boy to his assigned pallet. Cati had calmed down as she had helped Sam and continued to fuss over her beloved big brother as he lay on the pallet. The way that she was fretting over José reminded Sam of the way that Dean and him were…had been.

Like he had been doing the whole time that he had been here— hell since they had spilt up all those weeks ago— Sam pushed any thoughts of his big brother away and distracted himself; this time by searching out Marcus. Hopefully he could help with figuring out what the _hell_ was going on (literally or figuratively remained to be seen). By that time, Marcus had been able to settle most everyone down, so he was relatively easy to find.

Marcus and some of the oldest people of their crew were a sort of "council" for the group. It was they who decided on hunts, or "slay-rides" as they called them, or helped to solve any dispute that was really disturbing the rhythm of the group. There was no officiality to the system; it was just the most practical way they found to survive through the years. During his time here, Sam had become as sort of consultant to the group. He made no decisions because he felt he had no right to do so, he just lent his knowledge or talents to the group.

This group of older people, which included Marcus and Sandy, was currently gathered in one of the back corners of the room talking in hushed tones. Sam headed their way, giving reassuring smiles to some of the younger kids along the way. When he reached the group they grew quiet, as if waiting for him to give a report (_God it's like being back with Dad_).

"Well José should be fine. His pulse was steady but fast and I found a large bump on the back of his head. He may or may not have a concussion; we'll have to wait and see when he regains consciousness. It shouldn't take long but it could be awhile. I don't know exactly what we're lookin' at," he said slightly frustrated.

Marcus put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "Look man, its aight. You can only do so much."

The expressions on everyone else's faces said that they more or less agreed. Sam shrugged Marcus's hand off and squared his previously slumped shoulders and looked back up at the group.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, ready to **do** something. He had no intentions of just sitting around waiting. Winchesters were not good at the patience thing, and Sam was certainly a Winchester. The group shared a look, one that conveyed an entire conversation— the kind you develop after working so long together (like Dean and he had…had had) — and then Marcus turned back to Sam.

"We thought about sending someone out to see if they could find out anything about what happened to José," he explained.

"I'll go," Sam said before Marcus had a chance to continue. He knew that was what they had in mind anyways—as obvious by their weird conversation-look— and he told them so. "Look I'm the best tracker here and it's not like y'all weren't thinking that anyways."

The sheepish looks on their faces confirmed it, but Sam was in no way annoyed or angered. Well, until a certain voice spoke up anyways.

"Oh, sure. Let high and mighty Sammy go with the fate of us all," a loud voice called from beside the group.

Sam clenched his jaw the moment the other guy had spoken. Terence Sutton. Terence and Sam had clashed from day one. Or rather Terence has clashed with Sam. Sam didn't know _what_ Terence's deal was or why he seemed to hate Sam, but it had gotten old fast. Of course Terence calling him "Sammy" got him pissed faster than anything.

"I told you," Sam ground out, "that it's Sam." He turned around to face Terence's sneering form. Terence was a few years younger than Sam, but had a bulker frame. He wasn't as tall as Sam—that isn't surprising because who is?—but wasn't short either. He was about the same height as Dean. His skin was the color of the mocha lattes that Dean would tease him about, and always seemed to be sneering at any and everyone. "Unless you want me to call you Terry?"

At that Terence dropped the sneer and replaced it with a scowl that would put Marcus to shame. But it shut him up so Sam didn't care what expression he had on his face. In fact he had an odd urge to tell him that if he kept scowling his face would stick that way. Dean had used to tell him that when he was little and would pout when not getting his way. But he pushed the Dean-ish urge away because it would just lead to another argument with Terence. Sam just turned his attention back to the group.

Marcus, after a quick glare shot at Terence, resumed talking, "Yea, I guess we were hoping you'd do it. Like you said, you _are_ the best tracker we got."

Sandy, who had been oddly quiet up to this point, finally spoke up (without actually looking up), "Maybe Terence is right."

A shocked silence followed her statement. She looked up nervously, when nobody spoke for several minutes after she spoke. She looked anxiously from each face to the other until she reached Sam. What she saw there must have been bad because she practically stumbled through her next statement. "No, no! I didn't mean…I just mean… why should it be Sam? He's not really one of us. No! I didn't mean that like…that. I was just thinking that you might not be able to. Because of you wound! I just…I dunno," she trailed off into miserable silence.

Sam just sighed. It was, and had been for a while, obvious that during his stay there, Sandy must have developed a crush on him. Sam was flattered, sure, but the feelings he had for Jess and the pain over her death were still burning bright in him. So he dealt with Sandy's crush the best way he knew how, without alienating her and the rest of the group. He ignored it. Hopefully it would discourage, not encourage, any feelings she may have for him. But when stuff like her outburst tonight happened, he knew that, so far, it wasn't exactly going to plan. But eventually he'd leave, and she'd get over it, so Sam wasn't really worried. But he didn't need her doubting his decisions just because she liked him.

"Sandy," he said gently, "I know I haven't bee around very long and I'm not really one of you. But I want to help. My wound isn't really a wound anymore, besides I've had worse on a hunt. Plus I have a lot of experience doing this kind of thing. I'll be fine."

Sam directed that last comment to everyone before heading to his designated spot in the room. There, he stocked up on his weapons: a sawed off shotgun with rock salt, a pistol with silver bullets, and a flask of holy water (all of those had been given to him by the group). He also grabbed the letter he kept under his pallet for occasions like this. Before he left to follow José's trail backwards, he walked up to Sandy and handed her the letter and headed to the door.

Once before he had left the old body shop for a "hunt" of sorts, and he had left Sandy with this same letter. He told her that if anyone came looking for him named Dean or John or fitting the descriptions he gave of both, she was to give him the letter. Luckily for him, she hadn't had to give it out. He only hoped she wouldn't this time either, but you never know.

He gave Sandy a hug, shared a smack on the back with Marcus, gave a wave to the general room, and checked on José one last time. Then he left.

* * *

It was late evening as he left the once-auto shop. He took a deep breath (and almost choked on the smog) before looking around for any clues indicating which direction José had come from. What he discovered shocked him.

He could see a clear trail, leading from the door all the way past the corner of the alley. He knew that José and all the others knew to leave as little a trail as possible. José must have been seriously out of it and in a hurry, to leave such a blatant trail.

Taking a second to look around his surroundings and to make sure he was alone, he then set off, following the trail and erasing it behind him. The trail wasn't extremely obvious unless you knew what you were looking for. Vampires and other baddies, unfortunately, knew what they were looking for, so Sam was sure to disturb and erase any sign that José left in his haste to reach safety: a smear of blood here, a swatch of cloth there. The farther away from home-base that Sam got, the more subtle the clues were getting, as if José had started off more careful than he had finished.

Hours later, he was still following the trail, having to spend many half-hours at a time just searching for the next sign of José's trail. But a few minutes ago he had stared to hear muffled voices. He had no idea who or even what, they belonged to but he had a feeling he was on the right track. The closer he got the louder the voices, and the sounds of a fight, got. He reached an opening to an alleyway, one that held whoever was fighting, talking, and… _was that chanting?_

Sam, who knew better than to charge in blindly (_like Dean would_), craned his head around the corner of the alley, careful to keep out of sight of anyone. He saw in the alley two figures fighting. One was an older white guy with a leather coat, spiky hair, and a sword of all things. The other was even odder than the first. He, or rather it, was like a mix between a overgrown gorilla and a bug, or locust to be exact.

"Oh, crap," he whispered, more to himself than anyone else—especially since there was no one else to talk to. He knew what that was. It was an Avadon demon. These demons are one of the most complicated kinds to kill. His dad had never actually been able to figure out how to kill one, but he did know, from Bobby Singer their demon expert friend, that Avadon demons can't be killed with traditional means like most, such as an axe or fire. Apparently though, fire does frighten them or at least annoys them. He knew that because, while Leather-guy was fighting the demon, there were two other guys with him. One—a white older guy— was doing the chanting that he had started to hear earlier. The other was a younger black guy with a flame-thrower that seemed to be protecting Chanting-Guy. Every time that Leather-Guy would be tossed aside by the demon, the demon would try to get at Chanting-Guy, supposedly to stop said chanting. But when that happened, Flame-Dude would point and shoot the flame-thrower at it, until Leather-Guy got up and pulled it back into a fight. Come to think about it, Leather-Guy was taking more of beating than any normal person could. _Who is he?_

Before he could ponder any longer, Leather-Guy was thrown away, farther than ever before; his sword somehow going the opposite direction of him. And this time he didn't get up as quick as he had before; he was obviously stunned, maybe even down for the count. If that wasn't bad enough, apparently the flamethrower was messed up. Flame-Dude was banging on the thing and cussing at it—using words that would almost make Dean blush— but it wasn't working and the demon was heading his way. Or rather he was heading right to Chanting-Guy who hadn't stopped reading—and Sam had to applaud the guy for doing so, and even being able to speak for that matter— but he was shooting nervous glances to both his counterparts, obviously looking for some assistance.

With a foolhardy and reckless attitude that would swell Dean's chest with pride, Sam flung himself out of his hiding spot and into the not-so-much-a-fray-anymore. When it looked like the demon was going to swipe the black guy out of its way to get to the Chanting-Guy, Sam yelled out, "HEY!!"

Every head in the vicinity seemed to snap over to him—luckily Chanting-Guy did so while still reading what Sam hoped was a banishment spell. And fortunately, or maybe unfortunately he wasn't sure, the demon's head was included in those that focused on him. Obviously Avadon demons are quite curious; the demon left off its attack on the chanting man and turned to investigate this new presence in its midst. It got a few steps before realizing that to investigate Sam it would have to leave behind the threat to itself. It seemed undecided for a moment, so Sam decided to make its mind up for it. And there was one sure fire way to make a creature, or person or anything really, to focus on you.

_Piss it the hell off._

So Sam reached into the back of his pants and pulled out his pistol and proceeded to empty the clip into its chest. And it did a **very** good job of pissing it off. In fact, it was so mad that it skipped the whole screaming-in-rage step that most things/people go through after that and headed straight into the rushing-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-whatever-pissed-it-off stage.

Of course he wasn't expecting to run into a demon in a back alley of L.A. so Sam wasn't exactly prepared to take one on. The only thing he had that could remotely help was his shotgun. And rock salt doesn't exactly repel Avadon demons. So Sam used it the best way he could think of. As the Avadon demon charged him, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and swung away. While it didn't have as good an affect on the demon, the hit did make it stagger for a moment. But it recovered quickly and tackled him to the ground, much like a football player would an opposing team member.

Sam managed to keep his head from banging too hard on the asphalt, but could do nothing as he was pinned by the demon, which outweighed him at least two to one. The demon grabbed him around the throat and began to choke the life out of him. _Why is it always the throat?_ he asked himself and the universe as he alternately pulled at the hands and pushed at the face of the demon trying to kill him.

Leather-Guy must have gotten himself together by now because he appeared out of nowhere and attempted to pull the demon off Sam. He succeeded in two things, neither of which were what he had set out to achieve. He managed to stop the demon from choking him to death, but in the process got himself thrown across the alley.

The brief respite allowed Sam to catch his breath and, in those brief seconds, realize two _very_ important things. One was that the demon had tackled him right on top of a ritual circle. He had been around books of the occult and such enough to know a ritual circle when he saw it. The second thing he realized that Chanting-Guy had raised his voice dramatically and with a final yell ("Deportus!) finished the chant.

Sam knew the addition of these two observances could be anything but good and was soon proved undoubtedly correct.

He felt as though all of his organs were trying to force themselves out of his pores. His screams mixed with those of the demon as they were both caught in the same experience. His last thought through the excruciating pain was _Dean…_

And then all was black.

* * *

A/N: OK guys, for one, I hope that the chapter was okay. Once again, critique is welcome and wanted.

BUt the real point of this is because I am unsure how to take this story from here. So I decided to take this to you, the readers. So I was thinking:

1) I go back to Dean's POV and explain everything in a flashback/"this is what happened" kind of sequence.

OR

2) I can keep going in Sam's POV until we catch up to where we left Dean off.

You guys decide. Majority wins. (Even if there is ONE vote ;) ) If noone gives me input I will just pick a route and go that way and I want no whining!!! Lol.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

Jen


	8. Chapter 8

ACK! Y'all did this on purpose didn't you? When I decided which way I was going there was an even vote on both sides! So I gotta choose anyways! Meanies. Just for that I choose going back to Dean and leave you hanging with Sam's side. Haha.

Well, here we are. Chapter 8 at last. I apologize that it has taken so long but school just about killed me this year and I had barely time to do my homework, let alone write some more.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never has been, never will be. Must you remind me of this depressing thought?

So, sit back and relax and ENJOY!

* * *

Consciousness returned to Dean sharply, and his body jerked in response. His head protested vehemently against the sudden movement and his eyesight, which had only just returned, swam and blurred. He had to blink repeatedly and keep very still in order to stay conscious.

As he sat there (he didn't know how he was able to stay upright the way he felt but didn't care to think on it), his vision was clearing slowly, but surely, and for one moment he thought he saw Sam's smiling face before him, peering down at him. Not believing what he was seeing, he shut his eyes once more, rolling them in their sockets to attempt to clear them, and opened them once again.

Sam wasn't there.

Disappointment and pain, of a mostly emotional kind, swept through him. Although his head felt like John Bonham had used it for practice, he could clearly recall the events that had led here. He had to blink his eyes once more, this time to keep unwanted tears from flowing.

But speaking of "here" he had no clue where "here" was. Who knew what that vampire had done with him? Slowly, he opened his eyes and glanced around. He was alone in a room, a hotel room. So he must still be in the Hyperion. Dean scoffed at the idea of the idiots leaving him alone in only a locked room. Like that could stop him. _Unless…_ Dean looked down, dreading what he would find.

_Fuck_.

He was hog-tied to a chair. And no matter how hard he tried to get free, he couldn't. Whoever had tied him up sure knew their knots; he doubted that even his dad or Pastor Jim could have tied better knots than these. Eventually he gave up trying to get loose. His head was pounding and his wrists were chaffed from his struggles. He didn't dare call out for help because he knew there was no one to help and he wished his captors ignorance of his awakening for as long as possible.

That didn't seem to be as long as he hoped as he heard footsteps coming down the hall heading right to the room he was in.

Unable to get free and unwilling to talk to the people who killed his Sammy, Dean could see but one choice. He was going to feign unconsciousness and, hopefully, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference. After they left, he would keep trying to get free. He wasn't sure what he'd do after getting free, but at least for now, he had a plan. And it was time for that plan to go into effect.

He heard the footsteps stop outside the door, and he let his head go limp. He tried to relax his entire body as much as possible. Schooling his face to impassiveness was easy for him; he had been doing it for years on end.

The door opened and several people walked in. Dean couldn't tell exactly how many, but there were definitely more than one. They had barely walked in when one of them spoke up.

"He's still unconscious," a female's voice said. Dean recognized it as that Cordelia chick. "Dang, Angel. How hard did you hit him?" she asked sounding annoyed at Angel.

After that comment, someone snorted in laughter, followed by the sound of someone smacking someone else.

"Gunn!" Cordelia spoke up again. "It's not funny!"

SO there were at least three people in the room with him: Cordelia, Gunn (_the black guy right?_), and, apparently, the vampire himself. Dean made sure to keep his ears open for any clues that they may spill while he was "unconscious".

Angel had yet to speak, which made Dean a little uneasy. Silence filled the room and that put Dean on the edge as well. Suddenly, a strange sound filled the room. A sound that sounded like… _Was someone sniffing?_

"He's awake," a voice, Angel's, growled.

_Uh, oh. Guess the game is up_ Dean thought.

"What?" Cordelia asked, but there was no need for an answer.

Dean raised his head, smirk firmly in place. His cocky expression met and took in that of a shocked Cordelia, amused/annoyed Gunn, and a furious Angel.

Dean thought.

"What?" Cordelia asked, but there was no need for an answer.

Dean raised his head, smirk firmly in place. His cocky expression met and took in that of a shocked Cordelia, amused/annoyed Gunn, and a furious Angel.

_This should be fun_.

* * *

A/N: Sorry this is so short. I just wanted to get back into the groove of writing this again. Again I apologize that it is taking so long to write this, but my muse has been shot and buried when it comes to this story! I WILL finish, though. So never fear my faithful readers, those that still exist...

Anyone who can correctly identify (on their own! Leave Wiki out of it!) who John Bonham is gets a cookie!!!

Sneak Peek: Next chapter- Angel and CO POV!!!


	9. Chapter 9

And here it is! Chapter 9! WHOO HOO!!! Lol. Hope you enjoy the next chapter. You chould be happy to know that I plan to finish this story (and all my others) before the next semester begins. So we arent too far from the end!

Ok, this chapter is dedicated to Alley, my WONDERFUL beta, who puts up with my comma's (wink wink Alley!)

Disclaimer: (Havent done one in awhile, figger I should.) Not mine. Definitely wouldnt be adding you-know-two if it was...

* * *

Silence descended on the room and its inhabitants, who were completely focused on the now unconscious person on the floor. Time seemed suspended for a moment. In that moment, everyone was frozen in the positions they had been in as the fight abruptly ended. What seemed like years later, but in reality was only seconds, everyone snapped from their shock and began speaking and moving. Cordelia moved to the unconscious man, shaking him and calling his name repeatedly, "Dean! Dean!"

Wesley had hurried back to the office, barely sparing a glance to anyone else, muttering, "Bloody hell. Look at this place! Who did he think he was…..?"

Fred hesitated a moment, looking at Dean, at Gunn, and then at the demolished office. Gunn, noticing her indecision, moved over to her and quietly encouraged her to go and help Wes with the office. They needed to get everything back together and make sure that nothing was missing. When she inquired what he was going to do, he replied, "I'm gonna get me some rope and tie this punk up."

Fred nodded at this and followed the sounds of the irate Englishman into the ruined business office.

Angel was the only one that had yet to speak or move. He just stood there staring while Cordy futilely tried to wake the prone figure. He was still staring when Gunn came into view, dragging a chair and carrying a coil of rope. The souled vampire merely stood and stared—although one could tell from his gaze that it was not the present he was caught up in—as Gunn pushed Cordy out of the way, albeit gently, and dragged the guy off the floor and onto the chair and proceeded to tie him up. It wasn't until the man they knew as Dean Williams was completely tied down that anyone noticed Angel's lack of movement.

Flashes of people and events of long ago consumed Angel until he heard a voice calling him from faraway. "Angel?" the voice, Cordelia, beckoned him. "Angel, are you okay?"

Angel wrenched his mind from the whirling maelstrom of memories at the concern in Cordy's voice. "What?" he asked, disoriented

"Where'd you go?" she questioned quietly, staring at him intently. He had just begun to look around confusedly until he realized she meant mentally, not physically. He chuckled quietly at his mistake and he heard her do so as well. He turned back to her with his small smile fading a bit.

"I can't quite remember. This thing with Dean, or whoever he is, just reminded me of something. I just can't remember what." The two laughed again, this time at the absurdity of his statement. Cordy smiled at him, gave his a small pat on his arm, and followed the others into the office. Angel remained standing there; this time actually staring at Dean. A vague sense of something (familiarity, irritation, anger…maybe all three) whispered in his mind, but he didn't know why. So, he just shook his head, figuring that if it was vital it would come to him. Throwing one more glare at the out-of-it pain in his ass, Angel joined the rest of the crew. Now was the "figuring-out-what's-going-on" stage.

"…sely, sage, rosemary, thyme," Fred was calling out the names of the herb containers that Dean had taken out of the pantry as Angel walked in the room. Gunn was checking the names she said with the empty spaces in the pantry. They needed to make sure all were accounted for— there was more than just harmless herbs in that cabinet. While those two were doing that, Wesley and Cordy were gathering the scattered files from the desk and floor, and were checking them for missing information, even if they'd be unable to tell if Dean had taken any information mentally. Of course it was Angel's belief that that probably wouldn't be a problem.

Angel joined in on the task of picking up the mess, remembering what had led to it looking like this.

_They were taking a break from their problem upstairs and had headed downstairs to take a breather, plus Cordy wanted to check and see if Dean was back yet—something that made Angel growl quietly under his breath. Gunn and Wes were bickering back and forth again, and, for once, Fred had chimed in too, teasing both unmercifully. Fred had made a particular funny remark, when they reached the office. There in the middle of a destroyed office (papers everywhere, the herb cabinet open and herbs spread on the desk) was Dean, a confused and angry look on his face._

"_What the hell?" Angel ground out. "Would you care to explain?" Angel was mad. Madder than he had been in awhile. __Angel may have expected embarrassment at being caught or sheepishness, but nothing prepared him for the absolute fury that Dean had in his eyes. Neither that nor the punch in the face was what Angel expected._

"_You!" was all that Dean yelled before launching himself at Angel, who had barely flinched at his punch._

_Angel was more concerned for his well-being than Dean's so he neatly deflected Dean which sent the man flying into the lobby. He watched as the man lay there, hoping that he had given up, because Angel really didn't feel like killing anyone tonight. But Dean got up. This guy was more stubborn than he realized. That's when Dean started yelling, "It was you! You all along!"_

"_ME? What did I do?" Angel asked, becoming even more confused. "YOU attacked ME! Remember?" Maybe this guy really was messed up in his head._

"_Yea I attacked you," Dean said smugly. "But you killed my brother! Because of you, my Sammy is GONE!"_

_Angel had been steadily moving towards Dean in an effort to maybe calm the younger man down. But at Dean's accusation he stopped._

"_Dean that's ridiculous! Angel didn't kill you brother. He couldn't," Cordy shouted. "Now calm down and we can explain about what you saw in the office."_

"_Explain to me?" Dean said disbelievingly. "Explain to me about demons and spirits and things that go bump in the night?"_

"_I know it sounds strange but it's true," Wes said soothingly. "Oh save it Stuffy," Dean said scathingly. "I've known about this stuff since I was four!" Nothing you can say can shock me! _

_But what you can explain to me is why my little brother's things are in that office. Why do you have his id's?" The team was shocked at what he was saying. This shock was all Dean needed as he swung and struck Angel. That was when Angel lost all patience for this guy's crap. Angel's head snapped back, but when he brought it back around, his face was different. Angel had vamped out._

_Dean was speechless for a second. "Guess I was wrong about the whole 'can't shock me thing' huh? A vamp huh? Come on then you thing!" he shouted at Angel. _

_Angel watched as Dean looked around for something. Next thing he knew, a pistol was aimed and fired at him. He was sent sailing across the room. He laid there for a moment before getting back up. He had had enough of this and could only think of one way to end this without one of them dying._

_This time it was Dean who had no time to think before Angel had leapt over the couch in the middle of the lobby, and landed a solid punch on the man's face. The young man was unconscious before he hit the floor._

Throughout his recollection, they had finished replacing everything to its original position. Surprisingly, there was nothing missing. Apparently, the intrusive guest was after something else. And Angel thought it was about time they found out what.

They reached the room that held their "guest." While cleaning up the office, Gunn had remarked that they should restrain "the punk" better, while they were working. Wesley agreed and, between the two of them, they had drug him up (chair and all) into an unused room. After Wes had retied all of the knots (his Watcher training coming into play), the two left to rejoin the others, locking the door behind them.

That had been several hours ago and they were once again here. Only this time it was Gunn and Angel, with Cordy—who had refused to let them go without her—in tow. The two researchers (Wes and Fred) were doing their thing, looking for a Dean Williams and researching on the guy who had interrupted their banishing ritual a few weeks ago. They would have done so then, but they had to completely wrap up the case and then they had that other problem, the one they had yet to figure out. Angel had a nasty feeling that their two current problems were linked. But first they needed to figure out what "Dean"'s problem was. Angel looked at the other two; noticing that they were ready, he unlocked the door and stepped into the room, followed by Cordy, with Gunn bringing up the rear.

All three took in the still limp man. Cordy was the first to speak up. "He's still unconscious," she said, looking at Dean. She moved to take a step closer, but Angel grabbed her elbow, preventing her from moving. She swung her gaze from Dean to Angel, accusation screaming from her eyes. "Dang Angel. How hard did you hit him?"

Angel was about to speak up in his own defense when Gunn snorted, obviously amused at the memory of Angel kicking Dean's ass. Fortunately (for Angel's sake), Gunn's snort drew Cordy's ire from Angel and onto himself.

Cordy hauled off and smacked the ex-gang member **hard**. "Gunn!" she glared. "It's not funny!" Of course the amused look that was still on his face said that he disagreed. But Angel wasn't paying any attention to their exchange. Something had caught his attention. After many years of torturing and such, Angel knew an unconscious person when he saw one. This guy before him was **not** unconscious. Holding up his hand in a signal for silence, he broke up Cordy and Gunn's exchange and directed their attention to himself. He looked at them, held a finger to his lips to indicate to them to keep quiet, and motioned to Dean to tell then to watch him closely. Angel let the silence linger for a few moments, allowing the tension to gather. Then he did something unexpected. He sniffed several times as if that would tell him whether Dean was conscious or not. Gunn, who could tell what he was doing, had to clamp his mouth shut to keep from busting out laughing. Until he caught sight of what Angel had been hoping he would see. The "unconscious" person in the room stiffened almost imperceptive. Unconscious people do not stiffen on their own, so that meant…

"He's awake," Angel snarled. Gunn had already caught on, but Cordy was not as sensitive to these things as the two guys.

"What?" she asked, looking between the supposedly unconscious Dean and the scowling vampire. But no one had a chance to answer as the accused raised his head, a huge smirk planted on his face. Cordy was shocked, Gunn annoyed and Angel angry, but nothing seemed to faze the guy. His cocky ass smirk stayed firmly in place, even growing at the sight of the three in front of him. Cordy got over her shock and went over to him, crouching down next to him. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dean drug his smug look from the guys and turned to look at Cordy. "Sure am sweetheart," he replied brashly. Cordy stood up at his reply and the look in his eyes. It seemed like a totally different person than the one she met in front of the Hyperion. When she realized this, all the excuses she had made in her head seemed flimsy and ridiculous. Even though she felt a connection to the man, even now, she didn't know him. She didn't even know if his name was really Dean. With these thoughts swimming in her head, she took a few steps back, back beside her friends. Angel was the next to step forward, his intentions less friendly than Cordy's had been.

Before Angel could begin to interrogate the smug stranger, he heard Fred calling his name from downstairs. "Angel!" came her faint voice from below. Sighing in annoyance, Angel shot Dean one more glare before stalking out the door, Cordy and Gunn following. The door slammed, leaving their prisoner alone once more.

The three of them stalked back down the stairs. Angel was quite curious about what could be so important as to draw them away from their "guest." As he reached the lobby, he saw that they had yet another guest: a middle-aged man with dark hair and a dark beard, both flecked with gray.

"Angel, this guy says he…"

Before Fred could finish her sentence, the man in the lobby pulled a gun out and aimed it right at Angel's forehead.

Even as the man was taking aim, Angel recognized him. With a gun directed right at his head, Angel was as cool as ice (and not just physically) and more than a touch smug. "John-Boy," he said in a mix between cocky and irritated, "you know that won't hurt me."


	10. Chapter 10

**I am so so so so SOOOOOOOOO sorry it has taken me so long to get this posted.I have no excuse except that I lost all inspiration for this fic. Not to fear, this WILL be finished. I won't promise when, but it will get done. I already have it planned out. I dont know if there are even people out there still reading this, but for those who have stuck by it, I thank you. **

**Ok I know yall have waited long enough without me ramblin on. Enjoy!**

**PS This is unbeta'd. Sorry!**

**Disclaimer: Not. mine.**Chapter 10

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**UPDATE! I have made a slight edit to this chapter. Originally, it said that John took the boys to Sunnydale, but to fit with the timeline I had to fix that.**

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John Winchester was not a forgiving man. Generally speaking, you piss him off once (which is not hard to do), and he stays mad at you for the rest of your life, which is a bit of a problem for someone who is never going to die. Angel and John had crossed paths before, a long time ago.

It had been a hard year that year—it was the first year without Sammy with them— so when John heard of a rash of killings in a little town in California, he went, despite the unsaid hunter rule that that town was to be left alone. So he sent Dean on an easy salt-and-burn by himself, and he went to the Hellmouth. Many things happened there that John would rather forget. But one vivid detail stood out in his mind. The face of the thing he was currently aiming at.

John knew that shooting Angel would make no difference. He wasn't one of the best hunters around for nothing. Regardless of that, he felt inclined to do it just for the hell of it. Then, he remembered why he was there. Pain so sharp shot through his heart that he almost winced at the imagined physical pain. In fact, he might have winced if he hadn't been facing one of his most hated enemies. Well, enemy not so much, but definitely hated.

As soon as John had gotten the heartbreaking message left by his eldest on his cell, he abandoned (temporarily of course) his hunt and raced to LA. Luckily he hadn't been far, so he arrived soon after he left. The speeds he went would have put Earnhardt to shame. When he had realized, exactly where Dean's message said he was, his panic and fear had increased. His son was in the company of a vampire that held a grudge against John. And with Sammy….gone, Dean was all that was left, and damned if he was going to let some vampire take his last son away, especially since he believed that it was no accident that Angel was involved in this mess. Maybe even he was involved in Sam's death.

The moment John pointed his gun at Angel, everybody froze. The AI crew didn't want to set the volatile stranger off. John and Angel stared at one another, anger radiating from their eyes. The tension grew and grew until the very air seemed to hold its breath waiting for the next action on anyone's part.

Gunn was the first to break the silence. He had been around guns almost his entire life, and he knew how to act around them and people wielding them. "Fred," he spoke quietly, trying to get the young Texan's attention, which had never wavered from the gun pointed at her friend/hero's face. "Fred," he spoke sharply. This time her gaze drifted from the gun to her boyfriend's face. But Fred's gaze wasn't the only one to transfer to Gunn's relatively calm face. Dark, almost black, eyes bored into Gunn. Gunn continued to keep eye contact with the stranger, but he continued speaking to Fred. "Fred, come over here. _Slowly_," he directed, emphasizing the 'slowly' part.

As Fred began to move, slowly like Gunn told her to, John kept his eyes on the once-street thug. Gunn and he continued to stare each other down until an abrupt movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He shifted his gaze to the source of the movement, which happened to be Wesley. He had made an unconscious jerk as Fred had passed close to the gunman. As his attention shifted the Wesley, Fred had taken the chance of speeding up until she was safely behind Gunn. One thing Gunn felt grateful was that this guy was obviously comfortable with guns. His aim had never wavered. While hating that the steady gaze was directed to his friend's head, a steady gun was better than frantic. Angel had not moved once, staring at John. His face still held anger but that anger was now mixed with surprise, of sorts, with a dash of confusion.

"John, put the goddam gun down, wouldja?" a harassed voice sounded from the door. Everyone in the lobby jerked with surprise at the unexpected entrance of a new player. The AI crew looked to the door, wondering who had entered their domain now. He was, apparently, a friend of the gun-man. He looked to be middle-aged, maybe a little older, with gray-ish hair and wore jeans, a hunting jacket and a trucker hat to complete the ensemble. The man was scowling as he took in the situation in the lobby of the hotel.

There was another moment of tense silence before a click that seemed as loud as an explosion in the quiet room, followed by the lowering of the gun that had everyone on edge. A sigh escaped the black-haired man as he tucked the gun into the back of pants. He turned to glare at the grizzled man and growled at him, "I thought you were going to stay out there, Bobby."

Bobby, however, seemed unfazed by the glare or hard words. He just rolled his eyes and came to stand beside his fuming friend. "I ain't one of your boys, John. You can't order me around," he shot back. Internally, he winced at the now out-of-date use of plural 'boys", but John seemed too annoyed to catch the slip. "Now be a good boy and introduce me to your friends," he drawled out, sarcasm tipping the words.

John just continued to glare not at all pleased with Bobby's presence and remarks. He knew he shouldn't have called the other hunter into this. But while John was ignoring Bobby's words, Bobby was ignoring John's glare. He turned to the still confused crew and scowling vampire. They all had bemused expressions on their faces. Bobby took in the darkly-clothed, spiky-haired, large man in front of him. He spoke to him first, "You must be Angelus."

"Angel," corrected the brunette to the left and a little behind the vampire. Bobby's surprised/confused gaze traveled to her at her response. In reply to his unspoken question of _"Do what now?"_ she followed up with an explanation. "His name is Angel."

"Oh," Bobby uttered, before rubbing his face with his hand. "I always heard Angelus. You _are_ the vamp with a soul right?" Bobby questioned, hoping that there wasn't some mix-up.

John finally decided to join the conversation. "They only call him that when he is bad. When he is 'good' he goes by Angel." Anyone who heard John could hear his disbelief at the thought of Angel being good.

"Right…" Bobby trailed off. Once again, silence encompassed the room, only of a more awkward kind.

After several unsuccessful nudges to Angel's back to get him to break the silence, Cordelia finally decided to do so herself. She stuck her hand out to the man named Bobby. "I'm Cordelia Chase. I see you know Angel; the black guy is Charles Gunn. Call him Gunn, or he gets cranky. The girl is Fred Burkle, and…"

Here she was interrupted by the white guy as he stepped forward with his hand also outstretched. "Wesley-Wyndom Price," he introduced himself, with an English accent. "You must be a hunter," he continued conversationally.

Bobby shook each hand as it was proffered. "Bobby Singer," he threw out as a way of introduction. "My friend here is John Winchester," Bobby explained. At his name, John, who had noticeably calmed down, nodded to the group as a whole, still not feeling like speaking to them. "But how did you know we were hunters?" Bobby asked, more curious than anything. John, however, was suspicious like he always was but especially more about a group of people who hang around a vampire.

"It was mostly evident through your use of Angel's previous name. Only scholarly types that have read of him, hunters, and the Watcher's Council call him that. As a former Watcher myself, I knew you were not a part of the Council, and since, pardon the assumption, you two hardly seem the scholarly type per se, that left only hunters. Not to mention your clothes suggest that route of deduction as well," Wesley explained without seeming to take a breath.

Bobby just stared at the Englishman for a moment, a mix of amazement and amusement on his face. "That obvious, huh?" Bobby said dryly, once he had collected himself. That produced a few chuckles.

"So what can we do for you gentlemen?" Wesley offered imperiously, the previous gun incident seemingly forgotten.

"I want my son back," John joined the conversation once again, his voice low and dangerous.

"Oh dear. Has he been kidnapped? Well, you have come to the right place. We here at Angel Investigations…" Wesley began the company spiel, only to be interrupted by John's gravelly voice.

"No," he spat out. The word was directed to Wesley but his attention was solely on Angel. Once again, John's hard gaze was boring into Angel; this time, attempting to convey something to the immortal private eye. Eventually, realization crept into Angel's eyes at John's words and expression.

"Shit!" Angel exclaimed. "I knew that something wasn't…" Here he trailed off, searching past events with an enlightened outlook and seeing them in a much clearer lens.

However, the rest of the team was still lost. "Angel?" Fred queried. "What is it?"

"Dean," Angel practically growled out.

Even as John tensed up at Angel's utterance of his remaining son's name, Cordy spoke up for everyone still left in the dark. "Huh? What about Dean?"

"Where is he?" John demanded, without giving Angel a chance to answer the brunette's question. Her knowledge of Dean only proved that there was something going on between his son and these people. At his question, understanding dawned throughout the room, and chaos erupted at that realization. Everyone began to speak at once, questioning and demanding in John's case. Bobby was the only one to stay quiet. He stepped back to watch the scene in amusement.

"Wait!" Cordelia called over the din. "Wait! You mean Dean is your son?" Cordelia asked incredulously once she had John's attention.

"Yes," he replied curtly. "Now where is he?"

Cordelia just looked at Angel, who once again had a smirk plastered on his face. "I'm sorry," Angel replied smoothly. "There is no Dean Winchester here."

"Dammit Angel, you tell me where my son is or so help me God…"

"So help you God what?" Angel sneered. "What are you going to do? Shoot me?"

"Cut the crap," Bobby snapped, loosing his friendly demeanor. "Tell us where the boy is or us and every other hunter we know will be after your sorry ass."

Angel continued to sneer, encompassing both Bobby and John in his glare, seemingly uncaring that he was about to be immersed in a free-for-all in the hunting community. Cordelia huffed, annoyed, and stepped in front of Angel. "I'll show you where he is," she said, a glare thrown over her shoulder at Angel that clearly said _"What the hell is your problem?"_ and _"We _will_ be talking about this."_

John looked at the friendly brunette and gave her a small smile of thanks, the first smile to have graced his face in the whole half-hour they had known each other. "Follow me," she said and began to walk up the stairs turning right at the junction. Bobby and John followed her eagerly. For John it had been too long since he last saw his son, and the thought that Dean was his last son at all sent sharp pains through his heart. As he followed the pretty brunette in front of him—he was sure that Dean had at least thought of hitting on her, that was just Dean— he tried to think of what he was going to say to his eldest: why he had left, where he had been, and, most importantly, what about Sammy. But before he could think of one thing to tell his bound-to-be distraught son, he heard a breathless "Dad" sound down the hall. It was almost a sigh in its aching longing and lost tone. He looked up and there before him was his oldest, and now only, son staring at him as if he had seen a ghost, figuratively speaking.


	11. Chapter 11 Part 1

**Hey! It actually hasn't been that long since I last posted! GO ME!! LOL. Actually, I should be posting more frequently now that I have someone on my behind about getting done. I actually have fanfiction homework. Weird, huh?**

**Anyways, we are back to Sam's POV. This chapter ended up ALOT longer than I meant for it to be. Therefore, I had to split it into two parts. This is part 1. In a couple of days, I will post part 2. And we are now on the downward slope of the story. Since there are twenty chapters to the story, we are now over halfway. Ok, on with the show.**

**Disclaimer: I. Dont. Own. Nuff said.**

**This chapter is dedicated to cursedgirl for being my 100TH REVIEWER!! WOOT!!**

Chapter 11

When he was growing up, Sam always felt invisible. Between the legend that is John Winchester and hot-shot, ladies' man, favorite son Dean, Sam felt like he was overlooked as part of the Winchesters. The quieter, shyer, more intellectual son felt like he never exactly fit in with the rest of his family. Of course, it didn't help that Sam had never wanted to be part of the hunting lifestyle.

But no matter how invisible he felt growing up, it paled in comparison to how he felt now. He was a freakin' ghost! As Sam watched, unseen, the confrontation in the lobby between his dad and Angel, the past few days came back to him.

The return to consciousness was vastly different than the last time. Instead of struggling to wake up, Sam bolted awake as if coming back from a nightmare or vision. Oddly enough, he awoke to find himself standing in an empty lobby of what looked like one of those hotels with a retro theme that was so popular. Towards the back and the left of the large area was the front desk accompanied by an office behind it. In the center of the lobby, there was a circular couch with a few chairs and sofas off to the side. In the back was a very large cabinet with opaque windows, so that no one could see what was inside.

He had finished his perusal of the room and had yet to see a single person that could help him figure out what was going on. He was still standing in the doorway, so he took a few steps forward and began to head to the desk, hoping to find one of the bells to summon someone in the hotel. Suddenly, he heard footsteps descending from the floor above. To his surprise, one of the guys from the alley—the one he called Flame-Thrower Guy— was the owner of the foot making the footsteps. He made his way completely down the stairs and continued on to the back office without sparing one glance for Sam. In fact, the black man seemed completely ignorant of Sam's presence at all. As this was rather unusual behavior for someone on a hotel's staff (of which he surely was due to his familiarity with the employee-only sections), Sam became a little miffed. What if he had been a paying customer? Resolved to give the man a piece of his mind and briefly forgetting why and how he was here in the first place, he stormed up to the counter, his feet making no noise apparently due to some plush carpet—he would have been alarmed to know that there was no carpet at all— and slammed his hand on the bell.

Or he tried to. Only, he had slight problem in the form of his hand kept going through the bell. Ignoring the obvious and in denial, both obvious Winchester traits, Sam snatched his hand back, away from whatever the thing was that his hand slid right through. Finally, the black guy reemerged from the office and made his way over to the desk where Sam was standing. He forgot about the bell and proceeded to rant at the idiotic hotel employee.

"Finally! Do you know how long I have been here?" Sam raged at the man, growing angrier at his refusal to look at him. "So you still refuse to acknowledge me? Or are you waiting for me to vanish? I was standing in plain sight when you brought your sorry ass down those stairs and you acted as though I didn't even exist! And now, what? You can't look me in the eye? Where is your superior? I wanna talk to them." Sam knew he was probably over-reacting a touch, but with all that had happened recently, he needed to take the stress out on someone, and this guy was available.

At this point, the black man's face finally raised and looked at Sam. A broad smile grew on his face as he looked at Sam. Sam was taken aback at the odd look, especially in light of the minute long rant he just poured on the guy. For a moment, he half-expected someone, maybe even Dean, to jump out and tell him that he's "on Candid Camera." Then he realized that the man wasn't looking at him. He was looking behind him. Actually it was as if he was looking through him, but Sam pushed that thought away. Sam turned around and saw, coming toward him, a small, brown-and curly-haired young woman.

"Thank goodness," Sam sighed. "Look, Miss, will you please help me get through to this numbskull here?" Sam put on his best puppy-dog look. The girl continued walking towards him. _Finally, some help_ he thought as she opened her mouth to answer him.

"Hey honey. Whatcha doin'?" her accented voice rang out in the lobby.

_Huh?_ was all Sam could think. He opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she meant when the black guy (who he had almost been convinced was a deaf-mute) answered her.

"Just lookin' up some stuff on that last case," he replied to her question, looking down at the folder lying on the desk, which he had been staring at during Sam's rant.

The girl had, by now, made her way behind the desk and was embracing the black guy. "I know that the way it ended bothered you guys, but you did all you could," she soothed.

"I know," he sighed, sounding frustrated. "I just feel like we missed something."

Suddenly, denial **was **just a river in Egypt. The sudden awakening standing up, his hand going through the bell, the utter lack of response from both people in the room with him, not to mention the gut-wrenching pain from the encounter in the alley, pain that made him feel as if he was dying. Oh, god. What if he HAD died?

"HEY! HEY!" he yelled at the couple before him, beginning to panic. "PLEASE! TELL ME THAT YOU CAN HEAR ME!!"

But the couple did nothing. The black man was still staring at the file and the girl was holding him from behind, her chin resting on his shoulder.

Shock settled on the shaggy-haired young man. He couldn't be dead. He had too much left in his life to be dead: Dean, his Dad, the hunt for the demon that killed his Mom and Jess, even the people he hadn't seen since he left for college (like Pastor Jim, Bobby and Caleb). But what else could explain what was going on?

If he was dead, why was he still here? Why wasn't he with Jess and Mom? Had he somehow turned into the very thing that they hunted?

He didn't have any answers to any of these questions. The only thing he could do was hope that these people, the same people that had seen him…die, would be able to figure this out and….do whatever needs to be done.

And so Sam waits. He starts with the black guy and his girlfriend. He just follows them around trying to figure out how he got into this mess and how to get out of it. Time seemed to have no meaning to him, but later he figured it must have been around a week or so. He seemed to have lost time between the time he died and woke up a ghost.

During this week of watching and waiting, Sam was able to discern how many and what kind of people he was dealing with. There was Angel, the vampire with a soul that had once killed and destroyed with the glee of a two-year-old with a puppy. Sam had, of course, read about him but never once imagined that he would meet the mysterious being. Of course, he wasn't exactly meeting him, per se. Then there was Cordelia Chase, a beautiful brunette that had been gifted by "The Powers That Be," whoever they are, with visions. She intrigued him because she had visions while awake, instead of the frightening nightmares he had. The couple he had seen before was Fred Burkle and Charles Gunn, a former librarian and former gangster, respectively. There was an Englishman named Wesley Wyndom-Pryce, who was once a Watcher, something else he had read about but never expected to come into contact with. Finally there was Lorne, a club-owner who happened to be a demon, a corporeal one at that. Sam was shocked to see a demon amongst humans, but apparently this particular demon was on their side.

About a week after he awoke to find himself dead, the monotony that had become his "life" was broken, quite unexpectedly one day. The Angel Investigations team, as he learned they were called, was gathered together discussing a case they were employed in. Sam's thoughts had turned to Dean more often than usual, which was still a lot. He had been having a feeling the past day or so, a feeling that something was about to change, a feeling that had grown in intensity the past few hours. So with Dean on his mind and a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, Sam began to hum. It wasn't a conscious decision or thought, but Dean would do so when he was nervous and Sam unconsciously copied his older brother's bad habit, down to the Metallica he was humming.

Suddenly, Lorne bent over in pain, gripping his head and moaning. All sounds stopped from alive and dead people alike. Just as Cordelia was going to rush over to help to demon, Lorne stopped suddenly and sat up, no longer in pain.

"What the hell was that?" Gunn asked.

"I don't know," Lorne answered. "It was like when I read someone when they are singing, only much more intense and painful, which it has never been before."

"But none of us were singing," Fred insisted, confusedly.

"What about humming?" Lorne asked, rubbing his temple to rid himself of the headache gathering at the pressure points.

Everyone in the room answered in the negative. At least, everyone that was visible. Sam had frozen in shock at the question. In his entire week there, he had never known about this ability of Lorne's and would never have thought that his humming would have been heard. Apparently, he was incorrect in this regard.

While he hated to cause someone else pain, at least a good someone else, this half-alive, half-dead state was starting to drive him crazy. No wonder those who can't crossover end up becoming violent and crazy. He felt halfway there. If this was his chance to change this existence, even if it meant ending it, then he was going to take it.

He began to hum Metallica's "King Nothing," a tribute to the older brother he would leave behind. The demon doubled over again, in pain.

The AI team watched in confusion as their friend once again doubled over in pain. For Lorne it was a completely foreign pain. He had been listening to people sing and reading them for years and never had a pain like this. Pictures and flashes of memories passed through his mind in blinding speed. He had never seen the brief flashes of faces before. Due to the speed at which the memories flew, only a few words and phrases were understandable to the demon.

"_Dean!" …. "…have the prize." …… "Damien…"... "….fire demon…" ….. "Captain Helluva Big Brother."…._

A wealth of emotions accompanied the flashes from fierce love to fear to deep, deep rage. The pictures were just as varied. Some were of two young boys in a variety of situations; others were straight from a horror movie with monstrous beings. The pain worsened and worsened.

The rest of the private eye team watched, unknowing to the things passing through their friend's mind. The confusion permeated the room as they all realized that not a one of them had been making any kind of musical noise to set off their friend.

All of a sudden, Lorne gave a pain-filled gasp and passed out, his face splat down onto the table. Angel, who had been quite quiet, leapt forward. He grabbed the back of Lorne's luridly purple suit jacket and pulled the unconscious demon off of the table, keeping him balanced in the chair.

"He's fine, just unconscious," Angel announced, after checking Lorne out. He hefted the green demon into a fireman's carry and announced, "I'm gonna take him upstairs into one of the rooms, so we can figure out what the hell happened."

Angel deposited the demon onto the bed and turned to Wesley. Sam had followed the group upstairs and was taking in the entire situation. At the unasked question, Wesley replied, "I don't know, Angel. We need to…"

The Englishman was interrupted by a groan from the bed. Everyone whirled around to see Lorne clenching his eyes shut, pain etched into every line on his face. "Next time," he said, his voice gravelly with pain, "Make sure the bus kills me, not just runs me over."

Everyone chuckled at the usual humor coming from the club-owner. He couldn't be too bad off if he was still making jokes.

"What happened, Lorne?" Wesley asked, breaking the momentarily lightened mood.

"I'm not sure. One minute I was talking to you guys and the next I am getting a crash course in someone's life. I got everything from this person- emotions, visual, some auditory. Who was doing the musical mojo?" Lorne asked, looking around the room at the group of people.

"None of us were doing anything musical, Lorne," Cordelia added, sounding confused.

"That's not possible," Lorne protested. "My abilities do not work unless someone is singing or humming."

"But if none of us were doing it," Fred started.

"Then who was?" Gunn finished.

"Are we sure there was no one else in the room?" Wesley asked, the ever logical.

"You mean like, an invisible person or something?" Fred queried.

"No," Angel answered tersely, "I would have known if there was someone else there.

"Someone alive, yes" Wesley drawled out, as if an idea had just struck him. "But what about dead?" The ex-watcher turned to the green being. "Lorne, can you get readings from ghosts?"

But Lorne was already shaking his head, having deduced what Wesley was going to say. "No, I can't pick up on dead people."

Silence descended after that; everyone was completely clueless on what had happened. Everyone, that is, except the one person nobody could see.

Sam was stricken when the implications of their discussion hit him. If Lorne heard his humming and Lorne couldn't hear dead people then….that meant he wasn't dead. It was as if he had been plunged in a ice-cold lake. This knowledge buoyed him. Somehow he hadn't died in that alleyway. Somehow he was still alive. Somehow, he was going to fix this and find his brother, vision be damned.

Lorne seemed to be recovered for the most part. While he hated to further injure or hurt the demon (and wasn't that an odd thought), he needed to get this figured out. Without thinking more, Sam began to hum once more, Led Zepplin this time.

Lorne clutched his head once more, the barrage of memories swarming his mind once more. When he was on the verge of passing out once more, Sam stopped his humming with an unheard frustrated sigh. He wasn't going to get anywhere if Lorne kept passing out.

Lorne clutched hard at the edge of the bed to keep himself from falling off.

"Did it happen again?" Fred asked, concerned for her friend.

"Yea, sweetie," Lorne answered, a grimace on his face. "Although, it wasn't as bad this time."

"Well," Cordelia said, "it didn't last as long."

Lorne was shaking his head slightly. "No, I mean the pain itself wasn't as bad."

"What? Like you're adapting to it?" Wesley inquired, curiosity evidently displayed on his face and in his voice.

"I guess," Lorne shrugged. He grimaced again. "Still leaves a hell of a headache."

Cordelia looked at him, concern filling her large brown eyes. "Why don't you get some rest, Lorne? We'll look into what could be happening."

"Ok, that sounds good," Lorne groaned as he lay back down. Cordelia started to usher everyone out of the room. Eventually, everyone left the pained demon alone, and Cordelia shut the light off before shutting the door.

"I'm worried about him," Fred whispered. Gunn wrapped his arm around her shoulders, trying to offer comfort to his distraught girlfriend.

Wesley looked at them, a look of envy slightly passing over his face. "I'm going to see if I can figure anything out," he muttered, not waiting for anyone else's approval or comments, before heading downstairs.

While Fred was ignorant of Wes's abrupt change of mood, Gunn noticed it and, more importantly, noticed the reason for it. Knowing he should probably steer clear of the man for now, Gunn decided he needed to get out of there, for a little while. "Since research isn't my big thing," Gunn reasoned, "I think I'm gonna take a quick patrol."

"You okay?" Fred asked, worry tingeing her eyes.

"Yea, just don't feel like bein' cooped up with a bunch of old books," Gunn smiled.

"Well, I am gonna go help Wesley," Fred said. "I wanna do what I can to help Lorne."

"I'll contact some contacts to see if there is some big bad we don't know about yet that could be responsible for this," Angel murmured, heading out the front doors.

"I'll check with some of the local gangs, too, while I'm patrolin'," Gunn offered. He gave Fred a quick kiss before following his brooding boss out the door. Fred turned and followed the brooding Watcher, leaving Cordelia alone in the foyer.

Cordelia watched as the rest of the team splitting up into respective duties, feeling slightly useless. Now would be a good time for a vision. Waiting for a moment, the young woman sighed as the Powers apparently weren't listening. Worriedly, she headed back up the stairs, intending to check on and stay with Lorne.

**To Be Continued...**


	12. Chapter 11 Part2

**Before anyone else gets on me about posting this, I shall post it. I know I said it would only be "a couple days" before I posted the second part of this chapter. I droppped the ball on this. Sorry about this. Well, I'll stop rambling and get on with the story.**

**Disclaimer: NOT MINE**

**This part is dedicated to Endgame65- Thanks for making me post this!! Lol. Everyone should than Endgame for gettin on to me about taking so long to post this!!**

**REMEMBER!!! This is Part 2 of Chapter 11, not a new chapter!**

* * *

Chapter 11 part 2

Sam had followed the AI team as they left the demon to rest. As they dispersed to different objectives, he stood in the foyer, uncertain where he should go. He couldn't help with research, not being able to touch things would do that, and if he couldn't help there, he sure wasn't going to sit around and watch them do it. The same goes with Gunn; he wouldn't be much help in a fight. He doubted if he could catch Angel right now. So all that left him was following Cordelia back to the demon's temporary room. Perhaps he could attempt to communicate with the demon.

He stayed in Lorne's room for awhile, trying several times to get across to the demon. Each time became easier for the demon, but he still came close to passing out after a few minutes. Cordelia was there the entire time, soothing Lorne whenever the pain became too bad. Sam was about to try to communicate again, not that he knew how he was going to get the demon to understand what he wanted to say, when the rest of the team entered the room. Gunn and Angel had returned from their excursions and the two bookworms were taking a break from research.

"Any luck?" Cordelia asked.

"No," answered Angel shortly.

"Well, we have been through several books, but have been unable to uncover anything at the moment," Wesley reported, rather long-windedly.

"Actually..." Gunn began, but was interrupted by Cordelia.

"I was thinking," she began, almost excitedly, "Maybe that accident in the alley and Lorne's problem are connected."

Angel looked at her skeptically. "That is a pretty big leap. We have no idea what this could be."

"But two weird, even for us, things happening so close together?" she argued. "I think that's a bit more than coincidence."

"It's probably just that," Angel rebutted, " Coincidence."

Cordelia glared at Angel, angered that he wouldn't even consider her suggestion. "I need some air," she grumbled, stalking out of the door.

Gunn looked at Wesley, who merely shrugged. Arguments were becoming common between the two friends. They both looked at Angel who was scowling even more than was normal for the vampire.

"Sorry to interrupt your little love spat, but do you think you keep it down?" Lorne asked snarkily. "One of us, me by the way, is in pain."

"Is there anyone else but me who thinks Cordelia might have a point?" Fred asked, timidly. Four heads swiveled to her, a couple holding incredulous expressions. "Ok, so there's no evidence that says they are related, but how many times have we ran across coincidences?"

"It is worth looking into," Wesley admitted, turning to Angel. Silence reigned in the room for several minutes after that.

The souled vampire sighed. "I guess I owe Cordy an apology," he muttered, before turning and walking out the door.

Sam watched as the rest of the team talked quietly amongst themselves for a few minutes: Wesley and Fred discussing ways the two events could be related and Lorne and Gunn chatting about the two vampires the black man had apparently dusted while on patrol. Finally, the three humans decided to leave the demon to get some rest. Before they left, Lorne had another "episode" as they had begun to call them.

The argument between Cordelia and Angel had brought his and Dean's last interaction to the forefront. Once again, he began to hum, a habit he seemed to have picked up recently, his mind still caught in the memory of the fight. When he realized what he was doing and that Lorne was in pain, he stopped, feeling bad because he had not intended to try again for awhile to allow the demon time to recover.

"Are you okay?" Fred asked, sitting on the bed next to the green being, who was currently holding his pounding head in his two hands.

"That was weird," Lorne groaned.

"Yes, well, we are trying to figure this thing out," Wesley reassured.

"No," Lorne protested. "This was different from before."

"How so?"

"Although there was pain like usual, and I can't believe I am referring to any of this as usual, instead of memories flashing through like the slideshow from hell, there was just one memory."

"That is odd," Wesley murmured, his brow furrowed in thought. He looked at the still wincing demon. "Can you describe this memory?"

To Sam's great surprise, the club owner began to describe, in detail, the fight he and Dean had had three weeks earlier. But how did this demon know what had happened that night on that dark, and more importantly, _empty_ road? Then it occurred to him that that was the exact memory he had been thinking of when he had been humming. Perhaps this thing Lorne was doing, reading him or whatever, maybe if he concentrated on just one memory while being musical, just maybe that is the one memory that the demon would pick up on. Excited at the prospect of finally knowing how to communicate with him, Sam was uber-eager to try again; however, Lorne was asleep and the others were gone by the time Sam had worked his way through his theory.

Sam gave a frustrated sigh and resigned himself to waiting for the demon to awaken. In the meantime, he needed to figure out what exactly and how he was going to convey to the demon. The first thing he needed to do was let him know who was "haunting" him. Then he could somehow figure out a way, maybe a series of brief memories of words to express a sentence, like Dean's name and how to reach him.

It was only a few minutes later that Lorne began to stir from his brief nap, and Sam was ready for him. Armed with a memory of Dean's saying "Guess who?!" followed by Sam's own memory of the fight in the alley, Sam began to sing. At least Dean wasn't around to make fun of his singing voice.

Lorne began to groan as, once again, he was plagued with pain and memories. Only this time, the memories were a message of some kind. "Oh, crap," Lorne said, recognizing the fight with the Avadon demon even though he was absent from the particular event. Once you see an Avadon demon, you never forget them; not to mention the club owner recognized his friends in the memory. "Alright, alright. Enough already," Lorne grumbled to seemingly no one. "I get the message."

At that statement, the youngest Winchester complied with the agitated being's request, thankful that he was finally getting somewhere. For the first time in what seemed a _very_ long time, someone was speaking to him. Sure the person couldn't see him, but it was still directed at him. The hunter watched as the purple-suit clad guy got up and, somewhat, stumbled to the door. He followed Lorne as he stumbled down the hall until he got to the place in the hall where it overlooked the lobby. The rest of the team was there and it seemed that Cordy and Angel were arguing, again.

"ANGEL!" Lorne shouted, interrupting whatever disagreement the two were having. "You'd better come quickly. Things just got worse!" Angel and the rest of the team looked up at their green-skinned friend. At the look on his face and the tone of his voice, the whole gang raced up the stairs to see what had happened.

The vampire bounded up the stairs and reached Lorne before he could make much headway back to his room. He helped the pained person back to his room; the rest of the gang arriving immediately after. Cordelia went straight to the demon's side, offering comfort if needed.

"So what's happened? How is this worse than it was?" Angel questioned.

"I had another different kind of…episode," Lorne informed the team. When Cordy and Angel looked confused, the rest of them filled them in on what had happened when they were downstairs.

"So you only saw one memory?" Angel asked.

"Actually this time I had two."

"Two?"

"Yes, two. They weren't random either. They were purposely put together to tell me, us, who it is that is doing this."

"You mean you know who you're getting a reading off of?" Fred interrupted.

"Yes I do pumpkin," Lorne asked, giving a smile to the young woman.

"Well?" Wesley demanded. At Lorne's confused look, he huffed, "Who is it?"

"Right. I was getting to that," Lorne explained. "First I wanted to explain the two memories. The first was real brief. It was some guy— short hair, shit-eating grin— saying 'Guess who' in a really annoying voice."

"That's it?" Gunn asked, disbelievingly.

"That's it, my bald-headed friend. The second was much more interesting," Lorne drug out tantalizingly. "I saw the fight between the three male humans here and the Avadon demon."

Silence hung in the room for a minute, before Cordelia turned to Angel and said, "Told you so!"

Angel merely rolled his eyes at the former cheerleader before turning to Lorne. "So you think that whoever you are reading is the guy from the alley?"

"You got it buddy," Lorne answered.

"But I thought you couldn't read dead people," Gunn asked.

"I can't," Lorne admitted. "That's the piece of the puzzle that just doesn't fit."

Everyone stood there thinking of how this could fit together (Sam included), until everyone's concentration was broken by a loud yawn from Lorne. "Alright," Cordy called, "Everyone out. Lorne, you rest."

Everyone trooped out of the room, save Lorne and Sam. The demon was settling into the bed when the pain began and he received a memory of an older man saying, "Good job."

"Thanks," Lorne said to his invisible companion. "But that still hurts, so don't do it unless you really need to." With that, he rolled over and began to sleep off the headache he had.

Deciding to finally let the horned one get some rest, he headed downstairs to see what the rest of the team was up to. As he descended down the stairs, he heard a raised voice. At first he thought it was Cordelia and Angel duking it out again, until he caught the tail end of a sentence. "…peachy fucking keen!"

The youngest Winchester would know the voice of his big brother anywhere. He raced downstairs to see Dean halfway collapsed on the hotel floor, tears streaming down his face, ranting like a mad man. The psychic was so shocked to see his brother there and in the middle of a breakdown, that he could hardly comprehend what was going on. Finally, as Cordelia began to lead Dean upstairs and, presumably, to a room, Sam snapped out of his shock. His thoughts on Dean's sudden appearance and apparent belief that Sam was dead, Sam followed the brunette and his brother up the stairs.

After Cordy left, Dean just lay there on the bed, staring into nothingness, unawares that his brother, the one he believed dead, was staring just as intently at him. Eventually, exhaustion won out over Sam's willpower. He had been awake for several days. Apparently, he didn't need the amount of sleep a normal person would need, being sort-dead and all, but his spirit was all but spent.

He didn't know exactly how or how long he slept, but when he awoke, Dean was no longer in the room. In fact, Dean was nowhere to be found in the hotel. Giving up on finding his brother for the moment, he made his way to Lorne's room. The AI team was in there and discussing the lack of "messages" from their invisible guest.

"Do you think he's gone?" Fred asked. "Like, for good?"

"I don't know," Angel answered truthfully.

Sam had no desire for the detective team to give up on him already, so he quickly found a memory to use and began to hum.

As Lorne began to groan again, Wesley murmured, "I guess not, Fred."

The mousey young woman gave him a small smile before turning back to Lorne, concern flashing over her face. But almost as soon as the episode had begun, it was over. "What did you see?" the former librarian asked.

"All I saw was some guy saying, 'Help me.'"

"Do you suppose that this 'guy' is significant or just the words he is speaking?" Wesley mused aloud.

"I'd bet a Prada bag that it's the words and not the guy," Cordelia said.

"So we are assuming that the guy from the alley is asking us to help him?" Wesley asked, clarifying and getting a consensus on the matter. As nods came from the others in the room, Wesley cleared his throat. "Very well then," he started, turning to the room at large. "We want to help you. How may we do so?"

At his pompous tone, Sam rolled his eyes. Summoning a fairly common memory of Dean, he sent it to Lorne.

The short messages were becoming easier on Lorne, still taxing, but not nearly as hard as the longer times. The memory he got this time made him smile.

"What is it?" Wesley asked, curious at the odd response.

"Dork," Lorne succinctly stated.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's all the memory said. 'Dork.'"

That drew chuckles from most everyone else in the room, barring Wesley, who merely looked offended.

"At least we know this guy has a sense of humor," Gunn chuckled. "Dude, what's your name?"

Lorne winced again before announcing, "Sam. He says his name is Sam."

"So, Sam, how the hell did you end up like this?" Angel asked, getting right down to business.

It took Sam a moment to find a memory for his answer this time. He sent it to Lorne and the demon relayed to the rest of the room. "He doesn't know," Lorne passed on to the rest of the team.

"He doesn't know?" Wesley asked incredulously.

"What he sent specifically was a shrug of the shoulders."

"Does anyone else think it's a little creepy talking to someone who we can't actually see?" Fred whispered to Cordelia, whom she was sitting next to. However, Sam was close enough to hear the question and sent his reply.

"Totally," Lorne stated, a bit confused at the random comment.

Everyone but Fred, who looked a little embarrassed, and Cordy, was confused. As much fun as it was to mess with these guys' heads a little bit, Sam couldn't get the image of Dean's frantic and tear-stained face out of his mind. He needed to move this along. Deciding to head to Dean's room to think of a series of memories to send to the AI team to accurately describe what they needed to do, he sent one last memory to Lorne before leaving.

"He says he needs a few minutes," Lorne sighed, somewhat relieved. His headache was beginning to return.

"Well, I don't know about y'all but I could use a break, too," Fred said, as she stood and stretched. The team headed downstairs, minus Lorne who decided to remain in the room to rest before his mind was used as a telephone again, unaware at the confrontation waiting for them downstairs.

Sam had just reached Dean's room when he heard raised voices. Sighing at the interruption, and knowing that there was no way he'd be able to ignore it, the hunter turned right around and headed downstairs, where the noise was coming from. A gunshot sounded through the hotel and Sam raced to the lobby just in time to see his vision come to life before his eyes.

_Three Weeks (or so) Earlier…._

_Sam twisted and turned in his bed, sweat covering his face. He was having another nightmare._

_**He was standing in a large room, the details of which he missed as his focus was on his brother and the monster attacking him. The vampire leapt over a couch and without any preamble punched Dean sending him flying. The nightmare ended with his brother lying motionless—dead? — on the ground.**_

_With a start, Sam sat straight up in bed, his breathing heavy. He looked over to the bed next to him. Seeing his brother right where he was supposed to be, Sam crept quietly out of his bed and into the bathroom. A couple of facefuls of water cleared the remaining cobwebs from his mind, leaving one clear thought. There was no way that he could let this vision come to pass, especially the part where he just stood there and did nothing as his brother was attacked. He will do absolutely anything to change this vision._

But Sam didn't stop the vision from happening. Of course, he realized now that the only reason that he hadn't helped his brother was because he couldn't. Of all the times to be incorporeal. Also, he realized that had they never split up, Dean wouldn't have come looking for him and the vision would never have come to pass. There's a reason they say hindsight is 20/20.

Throughout the next few hours, he stayed with his brother, even as he was drug up the stairs tied to a chair. When Dean was waking up, he could have sworn that Dean had seen him but put it down to wishful thinking. He was present during the "interrogation," and was angered at Angel's cold treatment of his brother. When Fred called that there was a visitor for Angel, Sam decided to take that time to go to Lorne and make him make everyone else believe that Dean was okay and to "release him dammit." (He could use that particular phrase thanks to Caleb).

Of course, heading to Lorne's room was his initial plan, however when he passed the part of the hall that overlooked the lobby, he was surprised, to say the least, to see his father pressing a gun to Angel's forehead. As if he hadn't had enough surprises lately, their old family friend, Bobby Singer walked into the Hyperion, ordering his father around like a private. The last time they had heard from Bobby he threatened to shoot one John Winchester full of buckshot.

In a sort of daze, Sam followed the conversation and eventual trip to Dean's room. Only they never made it there. The look on Dean's face and tone of his voice when big brother saw their dad slightly broke Sam's heart.

**A/N Thanks for reading people. I will try to be more prompt. But I am not making any definite deadlines, because look what happened last time!**


	13. Chapter 12

**Hey my readers!! See! I told y'all that I might be getting more on schedule. So here is the not-so-long awaited for Chapter 12!!**

**Disclaimer: All I own is a few bottles of water and my precious student loan debt. GO ME!!!**

**Chapter is dedicated to winchesterxgirl for her awesome quote."**why did you have to kill sammy off? i mean he's emo as hell. but oh so lovable.**" Hope you don't mind I quoted you! **

**And the show goes oooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Chapter 12

_Before Angel could begin to interrogate the smug stranger, he heard Fred calling his name from downstairs. "Angel!" came her faint voice from below. Sighing in annoyance, Angel shot Dean one more glare before stalking out the door, Cordy and Gunn following. The door slammed, leaving their prisoner alone once more._

Dean relaxed as the door slammed shut, giving him some time to somehow get himself out of this mess. He knew better than to let his emotions control him. If he hadn't been so emotional, so…weak, then maybe he would have noticed that something was up sooner. But berating himself wasn't going to get him out of the mess he had gotten himself into. And it wasn't as though he was going to be rescued by anyone. He would have to find a way out alone.

Luckily, the idiots who had tied him up hadn't thought to search him for any weapons. Apparently, they thought the gun he had shot Angel with—that image still brought a smile to his face—was the only weapon he had. But Dean Winchester never went anywhere without at least two weapons, unless his pain-in-the-ass little brother made him. And it just so happened that he had a knife tucked into the side of his right boot. He had yet another advantage: whoever tied his hands evidently thought they had done such a great job with those that they didn't deem it necessary to tie his feet. All of these pluses added up to his escape if only he could figure out a way to get the knife out of his boot and into his hand.

It took a few minutes—he knew that Sam probably could have come up with it faster—for him to think up a plan to get out of the predicament he found himself in. He pulled his right leg up and perched it on the edge of the chair he was tied to. Then slowly and slightly painfully, he began to twist his arm back and forth so that eventually it rested next to the arm of the chair instead on of top of it. He stopped for a moment since the constant twisting had really started to hurt his arm. Wiggling his foot he wiggled his foot so that his hand could reach the small blade in his shoe. After stretching his hand and shifting his leg, he grabbed onto the hilt of the blade and pulled it out of his shoe. From there, his freedom was only a matter of a few well-placed twists of his wrists, and then he freed his right arm from the ropes. He quickly slashed the ropes on his other side. Finally, he was free. As he stood from the chair he had been tied to for who knows how many hours, he almost fell back into the damn thing. His legs and, worse, his butt were numb from being in the same position for too long. After a few minutes, the tingly feeling had passed and most feeling had returned to his body.

Dean approached the door of the room, grabbed hold of the knob, and slowly and quietly as possible turned the knob to open the door. Thankfully, the doors were evidently serviced often because neither the knob nor the hinges squeaked in the slightest. He eased the door open and quickly darted his head around the doorframe to ensure that the hallway outside the room was clear. Seeing nobody, the young hunter crept out of the room, holding the knife in front of him to protect himself from any attack he might come across. The hallway before him stretched for several meters before intersecting with another hall going the opposite way. He had made it to the intersection when, suddenly, he heard voices coming from the hall intersecting his. He plastered himself to the wall next to the opening to the other hall. He listened hard, trying to hear who the voices belonged to, how many there were, and what they were talking about. At first all he heard were two voices, a male and female, talking quietly back and forth; however, he noticed that there were three pairs of footsteps. The closer the footsteps got and the clearer the voices got, the more confused Dean became. He understood why Cordelia would be walking down the hall, but what the hell was Bobby Singer doing at the Hyperion Hotel?

Feeling slightly safe at Bobby's presence— after all Bobby only threatened to shoot his Dad full of buckshot not him— Dean, without thought of the third unidentified person, stepped out of his hiding spot and into the line of sight. Bobby Singer being here was one kind of shock, seeing his dad was on a totally different scale. John Winchester was the last person on the planet he expected to see. A part choked exclamation and part disbelief "Dad" fell from his lips before he could think of anything to say or, hell, even think. His dad's head snapped up so fast he could have given the Flash a run for his money (no pun intended). When the two Winchesters' eyes locked, no one else existed in the world at that moment.

"Hey son," John's voice slightly quavered as he met eyes with his only son.

As if there was some unspoken agreement, both men moved from the positions they had almost frozen in when seeing each other. They strode forward, with almost exact timing and met in between with a manly, loving, and so many emotion-combined hug. While hugs between the two more reticent Winchesters were few and lasted for even less, this hug, a mutual sharing of loss and pain, didn't seem to end. Neither said a word nor noticed as Cordelia and Bobby left, leaving the small, broken family to themselves. They stayed this way for several minutes, each savoring the feeling of the other, until finally a broken, "I lost him, Dad," came from Dean.

"I know, Ace," John whispered, bringing one of his hands to rest on the back of Dean's neck in a comforting gesture. After a few more moments, Dean moved away from his dad, looking away and rubbing his face to rid himself of any trace of weakness. He turned back to see the elder hunter doing the same. That, more than anything, brought home the fact that Sammy, the little boy he had practically helped raise, was now gone. Forever. Suddenly, a throat was cleared that startled the two Winchesters. Dean turned to see Bobby, who apparently couldn't stay away from the small broken family for long, had returned and was standing there, a look of pity, sadness, and the man's own grief upon his face.

"Hey Bobby," Dean greeted shakily.

"Hey boy," the gray haired man smiled sadly at the young man before him. Although not a "hugger," the situation the small group of hunters found themselves in called for physical comfort. So the grizzled man pulled Dean into a brief but firm hug, muttering, "I'm sorry about your brother."

Dean just nodded his head as he pulled back from the family friend, not trusting himself to speak at the sentiment. The group stood in the hall quietly; each contemplating what they had lost. Eventually, John Winchester's military, get-down-to-business attitude reared his head.

"What happened, Dean?"

Dean flinched slightly, part of him not wanting to relive the still fresh events while another jumped to immediately obey his father's command. "We had a fight, dad."

"A fight?"

"Yea."

"Son, you and your brother fighting is like a day ending in the letter 'y'. What made this so different?" John asked confusedly.

"It was worse than usual and ended with me driving away and him standing on the side of the road," Dean said ashamedly.

"You left your brother on the side of the road?" John shouted incredulously.

"I know, Dad. I know. I screwed up," Dean rambled. "If I hadn't let my anger get the best of me and I hadn't left him on the side of the road in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, maybe he'd still be here. I know Dad!"

By then end of his outburst, Dean was practically yelling at his father. Luckily Bobby stepped in before anything worse could happen. "Nobody's blaming you, Dean," the old trucker said quietly. "Both you and your daddy are hurtin' real bad, so let's take this slowly and calmly." This last part he directed at both Winchesters. Another moment of silence passed before anyone spoke.

This time it was John who broke the silence. "I'm sorry, Dean. I just…I just wish…" the grieving father couldn't finish.

"I know, Dad," Dean said, not having to have his father finish the sentence because it was one he had been saying over and over since the nightmare began. "I drove off, pissed as hell at Sam. Three weeks later, I got a phone call. You pretty much know everything after that. I did try to find him Dad. I promise, but you know Sammy."

"Yea, your brother is one smart kid," John smiled slightly at the thought of his youngest.

"Always managed to beat my ass at poker, and Caleb's too if I remember right. And he was only eight at the time," Bobby chuckled.

"Speaking of Caleb," Dean started almost nervously, "did you call him about, about Sam?"

"I would've thought you would have," John replied surprised.

"I, I couldn't," Dean lowered his head ashamedly.

"I didn't think to call anyone actually. Not Caleb, not Jim nor Mac. I just got into my car and drove." At this, Dean just nodded and gave a small smile that was more of a grimace than anything. "Look here, Dean," John spoke commanding, yet caringly. He waited to speak until Dean raised his head to look at his father. "I know that if there was anything you could have done for your brother, you would have. You carried him out of that house when you were only four, and you haven't stopped protecting him since. I don't blame you, and Sam damn well wouldn't have either. So buck up dude. Let's find out what happened to your brother."

While not the most touchy-feely pep talk, the comfort his dad offered him brought a spark of the old Dean back, the part that had been missing for several days.

As Sam watched the interaction between his brother and father, whom he had not seen for over four years, an ache deep in his chest grew in intensity. If it was the last thing he did, he would find his way back to his family. He had a lot of missed years, harsh words, and devastating misunderstandings to undo. As he watched a spark reignite in his brothers eyes and carry into his complete demeanor, Sam turned and walked away, prepared to do anything to get through to his demonic translator. Hopefully, this would be one of the last times he ever turned his back on his family.


	14. Chapter 13

**Guess whoooo!!! I am sorry a thousand times over that it has taken me so long to get this next chapter out. Luckily for y'all I will have alot of free time on my hands so I SHOULD get this story done. **Crosses fingers** Sorry its so short!**

**This is dedicated to anyone still reading it. Lol. If there IS anyone still reading this!**

**DISCLAIMER: I may own more than I used to but still borrowing Supernatural and Angel.**

Chapter 13

The team of Angel Investigation, minus Fred who was upstairs, was gathered around what used to be the hotel's front desk, quietly talking about what was going on upstairs. Suddenly, their conversation halted as approaching footsteps heralded the arrival of the three hunters. Everyone pretended not to notice the teary, bloodshot eyes that were evident on all three, considerably more on the youngest of the group. The three approached the team of private investigators, a slight tension rising in the air. As they approached, Angel and Gunn very slightly placed themselves at the front. Should anything happen, the two strongest would be a bit of defense. But as it turns out, no defense was needed.

Although it took most of his persuasiveness and a slight bit of blackmail on John, Bobby was able to convince the two headstrong Winchesters to hear out the rag-tag team they had stumbled upon before going in guns and stakes blazing. So as they approached Angel and the others, hostility was not at the forefront of their thoughts. John stepped forward as Angel did the same. As if they were two alpha males leading their packs into new territory, they sized each other up, but neither made a move to pull a weapon or throw a punch.

John was the first to break the silence. "Me and you need to get a few things straight, Angel. I don't like you," John bluntly stated. A groan from Bobby sounded at this.

"I assure you, the feeling is mutual," Angel growled out, before jerking forward slightly from a small punch from Cordelia.

"But I get this feeling that you know what happened to my boy. So I want answers. Now," John spat out.

"I'm not the only one here who hasn't been completely honest," Angel shot back, with a quick look at Dean.

When it looked as though another shouting match was about to begin, Wesley stepped forward. "Now gentlemen, before we begin to reenact our toddler years, how about we all go about this rationally? Apparently, we have all been keeping things from one another. Calmly and quietly, let's lay everything out on the table. Figuratively speaking, of course," Wesley suggested, looking between John and Angel, ready to move the second it seemed that they were not open to his suggestion.

"Fine," the two black-haired men growled at the same time; however, neither proceeded to speak. Silence reigned in the room.

Eventually it was Dean who broke the staring match between his dad and the souled vampire. "Dad," he called gruffly, his emotions still close to the top. When he had his dad's attention, he continued. "If these guys know something about Sammy, then we need to hear them out. We need… I need to know what happened to my little brother." At a slight nod of acceptance from John, Dean began to re-count his version of what happened. "Me and Sammy spilt up about three weeks or so ago. We had some stupid argument; I don't even really remember what it was about," Dean slightly lied. He had been playing that night over and over in his mind for three weeks, first in anger then after losing Sam, trying to find out how things could have happened differently. "Anyways, I got a call a few days ago from a cop. To make a long story short, Sammy was dead." Dean stopped here for a minute, his emotions threatening to choke him. "I ran into this guy," Dean continued, once he was okay to continue, "he told me about you guys." He gestured to the AI team. "Told me if I needed help with supernatural stuff to call you. So when I came back and saw Sam's stuff on the desk, I flipped. I just knew you had something to do with his…him being gone."

"Hold on," Cordelia interrupted. "I thought you last name was Williams and your brother's name was Benny?"

"Benny?" Bobby questioned Dean with a chuckle. "How the hell did you come up with Benny?"

"Uh," Dean scratched his head, a bit sheepishly, "I knew how much Sam likes Ben and Jerry's ice cream. So…"

"So you lied about your brother's name and your last name?" Cordelia asked. "Why?"

"Well, we hunters aren't always on the up and up with the law-folks. So we tend to use aliases to keep things easier," Bobby explained.

"Big word, Bobby," John piped in. "'aliases'. You been reading books again?"

"Shut it," Bobby shot back.

The rest of the group smiled at the banter between the two older hunters. Dean smiled the widest, glad to see that apparently Bobby and John had made up from that shotgun incident. He winced as he remembered the blowout between his dad and family friend. Suddenly something occurred to him.

"Dad," he queried, "What were you and Bobby doin' near each other?" He turned to Bobby. "You didn't shoot him full of buckshot did you?"

Bobby looked at John as if asking for permission to answer the question. But John shook his head. "I got this one Bobby," he said. He turned to face his eldest. "You know I've been on the trail of that yellow-eyed son-of-a-bitch." At Dean's nod, he continued, "Well I followed him to a town in South Dakota, but he was gone by the time I got there. But I happened to hear some people talking at a convenience store about a house that seemed to me to be hosting a poltergeist. So I decided to take care of it before I left town. Turns out I wasn't the only hunter on that job." Here, John motioned at Bobby. "After arguing and almost gettin' our asses killed because we weren't paying attention on the job, we got rid of the damn thing. That's when I got your message."

"Never seen your daddy paler than when he listened to that message," Bobby added.

Things were silent again after the hunters were done relating their side of the events leading to this moment. Angel contemplated the grieving family and, after a pointed glare from Cordelia, decided to explain what had happened on their side.

"Since you shared, I guess we will too," Angel commented. Then he proceeded to explain the Avadon demon and their unexpected helper in the fight. "I don't know where he came from, and I don't know why the ritual on the Avadon demon killed him too. All I know was that he landed in the circle with the demon as Wesley here read the final words of the incantation."

"You mean to tell me, y'all know how to get rid of one of those damn things?" John interrupted, looking at the book-ish man behind Angel.

"Yes, I found the ritual in one of the….." Wesley began in on one of his lectures before a groan from Dean cut him off.

"Not another book-worm. Geez, you sound worse than Sammy," Dean grumbled.

"Dean," John warned his son. The younger hunter went quiet. "So why did it happen?" the brusque man asked the former Watcher.

"Well, I have a couple of theories…" Wesley began but was cut off by Dean once again.

"Theories? My brother is DEAD and you have _theories_?"

"Dean! That's enough."

"Yes, sir." But Dean was still glowering at the Englishman before him.

Wesley became slightly flustered at the many interruptions by the hot-under-the-collar young man before him. "As I was saying…" he began before being interrupted, yet again. This time it was Fred who did the interrupting.

"Angel! Charles!" she called from the top of the stairs. "I need you up here! Something's happening!"

John turned to Angel at her exclamation. "I thought we were laying _everything_ out on the table. You seem to be holding back on us."

"A…uh, friend of ours has been having these…attacks, if you will, and we don't exactly know what they are," Wesley explained, as the AI team began moving towards the stairs, all eager to check on Lorne.

John, Bobby, and Dean all looked at one another and then proceeded to follow the concerned friends upstairs. The group went through the winding hallways until they stopped at a door.

Angel turned to the hunters and said, "I don't want to see a single gun or weapon raised against Lorne or I will toss you out of here myself."

Dean traded looks with his father and Bobby before shrugging and said "Whatever, dude."

Angel gave them another hard stare before opening the door and stepping through. Lorne was lying on the bed, obviously in pain and in the middle of one of his "visions". The hunters were astonished to see a demon—a brightly dressed one at that— snug in one of the hotel's beds. Of course they were even more astonished when the green, horned demon yelled out.

"DEAN!!"

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	15. Chapter 14

**LOOKIT!! A new chapter ALREADY!!!! I don't think I have EVER gotten another one out so fast! Fortuantely to everyone still reading, my muse has risen from the dead (kinda like Dean) and is attacking me! So, hopefully chapters will keep coming like this!**

**DISCLAIMER: Too tired to think of something clever. Angel and Supernatural are not mine. Just borrowing them!**

**DEDICATION: This chapter is dedicated to** cursedgirl**,** Endgame65**,** Slink-and-the-Bloodywands**, and** vampyfreak **for their awesome and oh-so-prompt reviews.**

**BTW I made a trailer for this story when I was trying to get the creative juices flowing. Here is the address: **

**www (DOT) youtube (DOT) com/watch?v=eItgXjhhJpI**

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****At one point (when Lorne and Sam are "talking") it might get confusing. So here:**

"Regular writing"**- Lorne speaking aloud to Sam (even if he cant see him)**

**_Bold italics_- Sam sending memories to Lorne saying these words.**

**Lemme know if that's too confusing for y'all!**

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Chapter 14

_Previously:_

_Angel gave them another hard stare before opening the door and stepping through. Lorne was lying on the bed, obviously in pain and in the middle of one of his "visions". The hunters were astonished to see a demon—a brightly dressed one at that— snug in one of the hotel's beds. Of course they were even more astonished when the green, horned demon yelled out._

"_DEAN!!"_

At the demon's scream and after a brief scuffle, John had Angel pinned against the wall, his face beet red from rage. "What the hell, Angel?" he shouted, dark eyes boring into the vampire's face. "Why the FUCK is there a demon sleeping in your hotel, and why did he scream MY son's name?" With the last syllable, he pulled Angel slightly back and slammed him again.

Before anyone could answer, a black fist was flying and clocked John straight on his jaw, and the hunter went down, not having expected the punch. Dean retaliated in kind, throwing his best right hook into Gunn's face.

Before another punch was dealt, Cordelia managed to get in the middle of the group. "STOP IT!" she yelled, shooting glares at both sides. "What happened to the working together thing?"

"He sucker-punched my dad!" Dean exclaimed, as Cordelia looked at him.

"Whatever, I don't CARE!" Cordelia shouted, shooting them all one last scathing look before turning to the demon on the bed. "Lorne? Lorne, are you okay?"

John got back to his feet, wiping the small amount of blood from the corner of his mouth. He shot dark looks at both Angel and Gunn before making his way closer to the bed, Dean following close behind.

"Cordy?" Lorne mumbled, "Oy, I'm getting really tired of this."

"I know," she smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair. Feeling the hunters' stares boring into her, she turned to look at them. John, Dean, and Bobby were looking at Lorne in confusion and a bit of trepidation. "John, Dean, Bobby, this is Lorne, the proud owner of Caritas."

"Caritas, what's that—a ritualistic altar or somethin'?" Dean smart-mouthed.

"Actually, it's a night club," Cordelia shot back, then smiled at the shamed look on his face.

"Lorne, also known as 'The Host,' has the interesting ability to read people's auras, and their futures, whilst they are singing. He usually uses this power to set them on their path in life. Lorne can also read their thoughts and emotions during their performance, which is one of the reasons he runs a night club- complete with karaoke," Wesley lectured, making Bobby feel as though he was once again a new hunter listening to Pastor Jim rattle on about other demons.

"So was that him doing that aura thingy? 'Cause I gotta tell you, the dude's a glutton for punishment. First he listens to some yahoos belting out power ballads and then has to go through that?" Dean commented, pointing at Lorne.

"'The dude' is sitting, well lying, right here," Lorne grumbled annoyed at the young hunter's attitude. "And I am no masochist, sweet cheeks. THAT was not normal. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't normal."

John and Bobby looked incredulously at each other. _Sweet cheeks?_ their eyes spoke to each other. Dean just turned red at the nickname and promptly decided to just shut his mouth.

Bobby was alert enough, however, to grasp what the demon was saying. "Not normal? Whaddya mean 'not normal'?"

The Angel Investigations all looked warily at each other. John was about to blow a gasket if someone didn't answer their questions soon. "Need I remind you about the 'working together thing' as Cordelia put it?" the eldest Winchester said through gritted teeth. Working with these people was going against all of his ingrained reflexes. First a vampire and now a demon. How many more supernatural things was he going to have to work with to get his baby boy back? If it was anyone else (minus Dean of course) he would have said forget it a lot earlier. But he knew that if he bailed now, he will have lost both sons because Dean would _never_ forgive him for it. The boy was probably mad enough at him for leaving him high and dry after the St. Louis gig.

Finally, Angel decided to answer, "At first, we didn't know why, but Lorne was getting these 'visions' when no one was singing. They were painful and random, but we had no idea how to stop them."

"What about ghosts?" John asked, pondering the new puzzle. "Maybe you got a ghost hangin' around singing?"

"As far as I can tell, Lorne's ability does not work with ghosts," Wesley replied.

"Wait, you said 'at first' you didn't know what was going on," Bobby commented. "Do you know now?"

The private investigating team looked at each other again, almost as though they were reluctant to share information.

Now Bobby was getting as annoyed as John. "Look, we have shared everything to know about what is going on and are trying really hard to ignore the fact that there is a demon lying in that bed..."

"Hey!" Lorne protested.

"…and you guys seem to want to keep stuff from us. So are you going to cooperate or are things going to get ugly?" Bobby finished his tirade with a not-so-veiled threat.

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When Sam had left Dean and his dad in the hallway, he had been determined to get through to the demon, but once again the demon was asleep when he got to the room. He let the demon sleep for a little while, but a feeling of urgency, of time running out prompted him to wake the Host up. He sent a mental wake-up call to the demon.

Lorne groaned, and Fred went over to comfort him. The young Texan had apparently come up to sit with the demon when he was following his dad around. "Are you okay Lorne?" she asked in her soft Texan voice.

"Yea, sweetie, the pain isn't as bad. I just don't like having my beauty sleep messed with," Lorne replied, the last bit aimed at Sam. A brief "sorry" was sent to the demon's head. "Yea, I know you're sorry, Sam."

Fred looked uneasily around, still slightly weirded out to know that someone else was there that they couldn't see.

Sam began to concentrate on what memories to send to Lorne to best get his point across. He sent the "Help me" combination again.

"We already know that you need help. How?" the demon said.

_**Help me…truth**_

"Truth? About what?"

_**Saving people, **__**hunting things, the family business**_

"So you're a hunter? Like your family?"

_**Yes…family…DEAN**_

At that last word, a seemingly never-ending cycle of images, emotions, and words rushed through Lorne's head. It was reminiscent of the first few times that Sam had projected at him. The information, especially the emotions (anger, humor, loneliness, and above all a fierce love), was overwhelming to the demon, and his head began to pound. He didn't even hear when Fred ran out to get help or when said help arrived. Just as he passed out, he shouted out "DEAN!" because of the intense emotion coming from Sam.

The next few minutes were a blur to Sam as he saw John, Angel, Dean, and Gunn all fight. He sat back and just enjoyed being near his family over the next several minutes as things unfolded. When it came time for the AI team to tell his family that he was here, that he hadn't left, Sam's heart was pounding in his chest. Well, it felt like that anyways, even if he didn't have a heart to pound right at the moment.

As Angel and the group hesitated to tell the hunters, Sam decided to give them a nudge.

_**Tell them…go here**_

"Here" is the old car shop that he had spent time at. He wanted the Angel Investigations team to tell his Dad, Dean, and Bobby that he was here, communicating with Lorne, and then go to the old shop and meet with Marcus and Sandy. That way they would know for sure that it really was him "talking" to Lorne.

Unfortunately, Sam's message wasn't very clear and Lorne was still tired from the outburst before.

"Uh, Angel. I think that you guys need to go to a place I just saw," Lorne's interruption cut the tension that had been building and diverted attention from Bobby's question, the one thing that Sam didn't want to happen. As Sam stewed in frustration, Lorne described the old shop to the group of people.

"I know that place," Gunn supplied. "One of the groups of kids lives there."

"What kids?" John questioned, wondering why kids were living in a dump like what was described to them.

"Some kids, like I used to be, that don't have nowhere to go band together and help hunt down vamps in the city."

"Kids? Hunting vampires? That's ridiculous!" John spat, upset that there were kids in the slums hunting the dangerous creatures.

A small laugh erupted behind John, another echoing unheard by anyone else. John turned to see who had laughed, only to see Dean smirking at him.

"Uh, Dad? When did I kill my first evil thing?" Dean quipped, looking almost incredulously at the man in front of him.

John grimaced, knowing that his son had caught him. He wondered briefly at Dean's new-found attitude towards him. While not openly disrespectful, Dean definitely wasn't cow-towing to his father like he did a short time ago.

"So I think we should check this place out," Angel said, stepping into his role of leader. "Wesley, Fred, you two stay here and keep researching what has happened and how to fix it."

"I'll stay here, too," Bobby said. "I pack a mean research punch."

Angel just nodded at the grizzled hunter. "I guess that leaves me, Gunn, John, and Dean to go to the shop." He looked at the two remaining hunters. "Ready?"

Dean was tempted to make a smart remark like "I was born ready" but seeing as the situation was serious and his dad was still annoyed at Angel he decided to keep it to himself.

Sam watched as everyone trickled out of the room, heading off to their respective places. He longed to go to the shop with his family, but he knew that there was no way he'd be able to keep up with the cars, and he didn't think he'd actually be able to sit in them, so he stayed behind, waiting for them to get back. He decided to let Lorne rest, especially after his overload—he hadn't meant to go overboard, but he was just so agitated knowing that his family was so close.

Hopefully, when the group got back from the shop, the research team would have a way to fix this. And when that happened, he knew he wouldn't take his dad, Dean, or the ability to speak ever again, because it was REALLY frustrating to have to speak through someone, especially if that person misunderstands what he says.

He just hoped that nothing would go wrong because of that misunderstanding.

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**Hope y'all liked! Lemme know!!**


	16. Chapter 15

**Happy 2011 to my faithful readers and to those who are just now finding my story. I want to apologize to anyone who has been reading this story and has had to wait so long. For the past few months I have been working on the story again. I wanted to finish before I posted again, but I found myself needing some motivation. I thought that by posting this that I would feel the motivation to give you readers more. I only have about a chapter and half to write, so I am almost done. (Plus my brother is after me to get done). So I should finish within the month. Once I have it finished I will probably post the remaining chapters a few days at a time.**

**Just to let you know, I made a small change to Chapter 10. Previously I mentioned that John took Dean and Sam with him to Sunnydale (where he first met Angel) but to have my timeline fit better, I needed their first meeting to happen later, so I made it after Sam left for college. **

**Sorry again for the LOOOOOOOOONG wait. **

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Chapter 15

After several minutes of arguing and somewhat empty threats, the group of four men decided to take just one car to the old auto-shop. Most of the arguing erupted over the issue of which car to take. Since Gunn didn't have his own car and John's truck would not fit four full-grown men in it, the decision came down to Angel's convertible and Dean's Impala. Both argued that it would be more beneficial to use his car. Finally, it was Cordelia who came up with a solution. She was staying behind to help Lorne if he needed it but had followed the men out to see them off.

"I got it!" she exclaimed, cutting off Dean mid-argument. Four pairs of eyes turned to look at her. "We are going to solve this problem in a time-tested manner."

"And that is?" John asked, somewhat wary of the volatile young woman.

Cordy stuck her hand in her pants pocket, moved it around for a few seconds, and then pulled out a quarter. "We'll flip for it," she said smugly. "Gunn, you call it."

"Ok, heads we go in Angel's, tails in Dean's."

Cordelia flipped the coin, caught it in her hand, and slapped it on her arm. She slowly uncovered the coin so that all could see the results.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

A black car roared down the roads of Los Angeles with its driver smirking in victory, _Hell's Bells_ blaring out of the windows.

John Winchester rolled his eyes at his son's immature taunting of the scowling vampire in the backseat. Normally, he wouldn't tolerate this behavior from his son, but his own dislike of the vampire overrode the automatic instinct to chide Dean.

With Gunn's directions and Dean's lead foot, they arrived at the shop in a relatively short amount of time. All four looked at the building they pulled up to with suspicious and calculating stares. Dean summed up what they were all thinking very succinctly. "What a dump," he said disgustedly.

Gunn, while not disagreeing, knew the alternative that most of these kids had. "It's a helluva lot better than some of their options," Gunn shot at Dean with a glare to accompany the biting words.

Dean just shrugged the black man's anger off, knowing he was right. After all, the Winchesters had lived in some worse homes than this. He followed his dad and Angel who had already headed to what appeared to be the entrance. Before they could knock or open the door, someone pulled the door open, crossbow aimed directly at the approaching people. All four stilled, warily watching the man with the crossbow.

Dean took in the new threat. The black guy looked about Sam's age, maybe a little older, and was slightly thick, most likely due to muscles rather than fat. The guy was scowling as he took in the new arrivals until he reached Gunn's face.

"Gunn?" he nearly choked out, shock replacing the scowl on his face.

"Yo, Marcus. Wanna put the pointy down?" Gunn asked with a smile on his face.

Marcus lowered it without taking his eyes off Gunn. "Well, I'll be damned. If it ain't Charles Gunn back from the dead."

"Uh, 'scuse me? Dead?" Dean asked, shooting a look at the now confused Gunn.

"Yea since you ain't been by in a long time, we gave you up for dead," Marcus explained, who was over his shock and looking warily again at the strangers.

"Guess word didn't spread out this far," Gunn explained. "I've been working with a private investigating firm. Dude right there," here he pointed to Angel, "runs the place."

"Who're the others?"

"These are hunters: Dean and John."

At those names and the mention of hunters, Marcus got a wary and somewhat nervous look on his face. "Come on in," he muttered, allowing the four men to enter the shop. They stopped in the entranceway, allowing Marcus to lock the door up and then move to the front to guide them to the main part of the room.

"Hey, Dad. Does this place remind you of anywhere?" Dean asked, craning his neck around taking in the auto-shop.

A beat of silence, followed by a short "not really" were Dean's answers. Dean, however, knew that he had seen a place like this before. Sure he had seen a lot of auto-shops, but this one seemed different. Finally it clicked.

"I know. This looks just like that shop in that one town. The one with the creepy old house and haunted church. Where was that again?"

Recollection dawned in the elder hunter's eyes. "Tennessee. I remember now."

Satisfied at having figured the puzzle out, Dean focused back on the present. He mood sobered immediately as he thought about the fact these people may know something about his little brother.

As Dean was trying to figure out the similarity of the shop, the group had been making their way through a seemingly endless maze of hallways before emerging into the main room of the rundown building. As they emerged, the young hunter was shocked to see the sizeable group of teens and young adults that apparently lived there. Marcus continued leading the motley crew of strangers past the now staring and quiet crowd. He led them to one of the back corners of the once-garage where a group of people, who seemed to consist of the older people present, sat off to themselves.

Some of the group members stood as they got closer. The faces of the group reflected many different emotions at the sight of the newcomers: anger, curiosity, fear. None, so it seemed to Dean, had the audacity to speak against Marcus bringing in a bunch of strangers to what was essentially their safe haven. This fact alone let the hunters and Angel know that Marcus must be the guy in charge. As those three took in their unfamiliar surroundings, Gunn and the young leader were sharing news about people they obviously mutually knew.

A young girl, who had been watching the group avidly since they entered the room, finally spoke up, breaking into the two black men's conversation. "Hey Marcus. Are ya gonna just keep runnin' your mouth, or are ya gonna introduce your new friends?"

Marcus rolled his eyes at the girl's words. Only Gunn and Dean seemed to see this, as they both snorted. As annoyed as he was at her, she did have a point, so he turned to the group. "Guys, you know Gunn. This is Angel, who is apparently his employer," here Marcus stopped to snigger a bit, but continued after Gunn socked him on the arm. "The other two are hunters."

The light-hearted atmosphere and quiet chatter that had grown up over the past few minutes suddenly vanished at his words. Dean and John traded looks. "Was it something I said?" Dean joked at the suddenly serious faces around him. Most of the curiosity was gone from the faces around them, leaving only anger and fear. After no response to his quip, he turned to his father, muttering, "I'm guessing that hunters- not so popular here."

"These guys are cool," Gunn reassured the group of runaways and orphans. "I know most hunters are punks, but I'll vouch for these two." Still seeing the reluctance from the group, he continued. "In fact, we…they need your help."

"Why should we help some hunters?" spat out a young man nearby.

Dean turned to the speaker. The same height as Dean, the naysayer was a bit bulkier than him with the color skin of those mocha latte things that Sam liked to order and that Dean liked to tease him about. As he opened his mouth to snap back at the young man, Marcus's voice cut him off.

"Shut it Terence," he snapped. His face, however, didn't look much friendlier than Terence's did. The young leader turned to Gunn. "Terence may be an ass, but he's got a point. Why should we help a couple of hunters?"

"Look," John stepped in for the first time, "I don't know what you have against hunters, and frankly, I don't care. We were told that you could help. If you can't, fine. We'll just be going."

As he turned to storm off, his eldest son's somewhat strangled voice stopped him. "Dad, wait. We have to try." As soon as he was sure his stubborn father was not going to leave, Dean turned back to the group in charge. "Okay, I get it. Here hunters are douchebags. Then pretend for a moment that we aren't hunters. We just need to know if you know anything about my brother."

"Dean? John?"

Startled by their names being called by a stranger, the two Winchesters turned to the voice who had spoken out. It was the same girl that had gotten on to Marcus earlier. She had risen from the floor where she was sitting just seconds earlier and was coming at them. At her question, Marcus had turned to look at the two as well.

"Um, guilty," Dean quipped, nervous at the sudden turnabout of events.

"Guys, this is Sam's dad and brother," she exclaimed, looking out at everyone. Intense whispering broke out at the girl's announcement, the fear and anger gone from most people's faces. "I didn't think I'd ever get to meet you!" the girl enthused, before taking on a confused tone. "Where's Sam? Is he here with you?" She looked around the group of strangers, as if they could have hid Sam's gigantic frame behind them.

John and Dean shot each other looks, neither wanting to tell the bad news. It was Angel, in the end, who did that for them.

"He's dead," the ensouled vampire stated. Startled gasps sounded in the large room. Dean himself flinched at the matter-of-fact tone of the pronouncement, even though he had known for awhile now.

The girl in front of them went from excited to crushed in a manner of seconds and seemed to throw herself in Marcus's arms, who himself looked shocked and grieved. As he comforted the sobbing girl, he looked at Angel, then John and Dean. "What happened? We knew when he didn't return that…but we hoped maybe he just finally found you guys."

"Actually we hoped were kinda hopin' you could tell us," Gunn said somewhat sheepishly.

"Was it his stab wound? Did I not treat it well? Omigosh, this is all my fault," the girl began to ramble, beginning a descent into hysterics.

"Hey, Hey," Dean tried to calm her down. "Uh…," fishing for a name, he looked at the others. Marcus mouthed the girls name, Sandy, to him. "Sandy, you need to calm down. I am sure that it's not your fault, but I need to know what you know so I can figure this out. Think you can calm down for me, for Sam?"

Sandy took several deep breaths before wiping at her eyes."Ok, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall apart like that. What do you wanna know?"

Dean also took a deep breath. "Ok, just start from the beginning. How did you meet my brother?" He aimed this question not just at Sandy but the others as well.

Marcus and Sandy told the story of meeting Sam on the vampire hunt, his subsequent injury—which Dean cursed about—and the following weeks recuperating. As Marcus finished, explaining that they hadn't seen Sam since he went looking for whatever hurt José, Sandy had left for a moment, returning with a battered envelope.

She explained the envelope as she handed it to John, "He wrote this letter not long after he came here. Anytime he left here, he would give it to me and told me to give it to anyone named John or Dean that came looking for him."

Dean could have sworn he saw his dad's hand tremble as the older man received the envelope but shook it off as the poor lighting in the practically condemned building. He and his dad locked eyes briefly, as the father gripped the letter from his youngest child.

John knew that Dean wanted to read this letter, probably more than anything other than having his brother back. But this was John's baby boy. He may not have always seen eye to eye with Sammy and had, for all intents and purposes, kicked him out, but his heart needed to read the words, probably the last words, written by his baby boy. Locking eyes with his eldest son for a moment, he gripped the letter tight, before looking down and ripping the envelope open and unfolding the letter.

As his father read the letter, Dean watched his face avidly for any idea about the letter's contents. As the older man, and at this point he had never looked older to Dean, read the letter, his jaw tightened, his brow furrowed, and his eyes welled up with tears. It was the last thing that really set Dean on edge.

After Sandy had handed the letter to John, the rest of the room seemed to have fallen away from the hunters' perspectives. As Dean watched John read Sammy's letter, sounds and voices began to filter in from the world around him. A comment from Terence was what brought his full attention back.

"Should've known that pussy white boy would get himself killed," Terence laughed to those around him.

A pure rage enveloped Dean when he heard those words. Before anyone even saw him move, he tackled Terence, swinging his fists as if faced with a supernatural monster. Shock stalled everyone for a moment as they watched the young hunter pummel the foolish teen.

Angel recovered first, grabbing Dean by the leather jacket and hauling him off the other person. Dean merely shoved at Angel, ready to pounce again when he was shoved backwards by someone else. Over the roar in his ears, he finally heard his dad's shout, "Dammit Dean, COOL IT!"

Having obeyed the older hunter's orders for so long, the enraged man stopped immediately, his chest heaving with rage and from the exertion of beating the idiot in front of him. Just because he stopped hitting him, didn't mean he was going to let this go. "Listen up, Terry-boy…"

"Dean!" His father's firm voice stopped him once more. Both hunters turned to look at the young man still lying on the ground, blood dripping from his nose and lips. He tried to sneer, but there was no masking the fear in his eyes. John's voice sounded out in the now silent room, everyone having been shocked into silence by Dean's attack; his voice was quiet and came out almost as a hiss, "You hear me boy. You say something like that again about or to my boys, and I'll do worse than what Dean just did. Don't you forget: I am a hunter and a damn good one. I've made things a helluva lot scarier than you run in fright before I caught them and killed them. You keep that in mind, huh?"

Dead silence encased the room. John continued to stare at the quivering lump on the floor that was Terence. Dean, smirking slightly at the sight, turned to Marcus and Sandy. "I have a feeling we just dropped on the 'Welcome-meter' so I think we are going to head out. Thanks for takin' care of Sammy."

Sandy smiled and nodded, while Gunn and Marcus did their manly hug/handshake. With one last pointed glare at Terence, John nodded at the two friends of Sam. They made their way out of the suddenly claustrophobic room. As they emerged from the ramshackle building, all four began to chuckle lightly.

Piling into the Impala, they began to rib John.

"Run in fright, Dad? Seriously?"

"I'm a hunter and a damn good one," Gunn mocked in a bad John-impersonation. "Modest, huh?"

John just took the ribbing but knew that he had meant every word he said to the punk.

Dean started the car, and _Highway to Hell_ blared out of the speakers. Sensing the lingering resentment seething from the vampire the backseat, he cranked the music up before peeling out onto the road.

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Chapter 15


	17. Chapter 16

**Hey there guys! I am pleased to announce (to those who are stil reading or just finding this for the first time) that I have finally finished this story. It is a total of 20 chapters with an epilogue, but I will have to split the last chapter into two parts. Since it is completed, I plan to post a new chapter every other day. I know that y'all have waited long enough for this story to be done.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Supernatural or Angel. Or even my car. *sigh***

**This chapter is dedicated to: Heartless BytchhakaHelenBach1 (for being my 150th reviewer), Lilly Emerald (for her numerous and funny reviews), and The 214th Rabid Fangirl (for calling my story "rockin' awesome." Love that phrase!)****  
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Chapter 16

The humor that had taken over the four men on the ride back to the motel seemed to die the moment they arrived back. To Dean, it felt good to forget, for just a moment, why they were all together. As he pulled to the curb, guilt began to take over, guilt at having forgotten, for even one moment, that his little brother was dead. They all emerged from the cramped quarters of the Impala and headed towards the hotel.

The Winchesters lagged behind the other two; there were things that needed to be said and dealt with between the two. Eventually, the two hunters came to a stop, as the two AI members continued into the hotel, somehow sensing that the broken family needed time to sort things out.

Dean stared at his dad, looking for something in the older man's expression; he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. John looked tired and old; two things he had never seemed to Dean before, but the younger hunter figured that the death of a son could do that to you.

John stared at his only remaining son, the last part of his family that hadn't been ripped from him. He could see the grief that Dean was harboring; it made him look tired, yet somehow younger. He knew that the letter in his pocket would only make that grief more tangible, more real. Knowing this, he pulled the letter out anyways. Bobby and others may call him a bastard, but Dean deserved to know what was in the letter, he deserved to read the truth from his brother's own words.

Dean watched as his father pulled the letter from his pocket. He dreaded reading it. Somehow he knew that whatever was in that letter would only make things that much worse. But he was a Winchester, and he would not hide from the truth, no matter how painful. Wordlessly, he took the letter, turned from his father, and began to read.

_I guess if someone is reading this, then I am missing, maybe even dead. If I am missing, I know that you will find me, whichever one of you is reading this- probably Dean since Dad hasn't been around much. If I am dead, well I hope you aren't hurting too much. Sorry, I'm kind of rambling on and on. My head is filled with thoughts and I guess I hoped that writing this would sort it out. So, you'll have to bear with me. For the purposes of my sanity, I am going to assume that Dean is reading this. _

_Dean, I am sorry about, well, about everything. The fight we had in the Impala, the last one, I said some harsh things. True, I may have believed those things at one time, but I had no right to bring up the past like that. I know I said some hurtful things, things that made you attack in response. I hope you're not beating yourself up over that crap. Now I know what you are thinking, "no chick-flick moments," but seeing as this might be my last words to you, screw you on that. There are things that need to be said._

_I lied to you Dean. All that stuff I spouted off: finding dad, wanting to disobey his orders, all of it. It was a lie, well, except for the whole "I want you to leave me thing." That was true. I had to protect you. I know you don't understand, but let's just say the events of Lawrence (the more recent events, not Mom) were repeating themselves. I don't want to say too much because it may not be you reading this, but I think you will understand. I had to protect you and leaving you seemed the only way to do that. I hope you forgive me one day for doing so._

_In the case that I am dead, I want you to know some things. There has been this bond between us since the moment you saved me that night. I know we don't talk about it, but let's face it; we don't talk about much. But I knew that through everything, even all the times I screwed up or let you down, I knew you were there for me. You would always have my back. Even after I left for college and left you and Dad, I know that you would have come running if I had called. But I didn't, and that is something I will always regret. I love you, jerk, and I hope that you will keep on saving people, hunting things: the family business._

_If you ever find Dad, can you tell him something for me? Can you tell him I'm sorry? Tell him that I didn't mean most of what I said the night I left, and that I always regret that that fight was the last time we talked. Tell him I understand now, what he went through, and I even kinda understand why he raised us the way he did. Tell him I love him and that I have always been proud to be his son, even if I was mad at him._

_Samuel Winchester_

Dean's fingers clenched the piece of paper he held. He was careful, however, not to ruin his baby brother's final words. He thought that if he let go then it would be real. And he would not be able to control his reaction.

"Dean…" his father's tentative voice sounded through the muted silence, breaking him from the world that Sam's final words had created. Just when he thought things could get no weirder. Sammy was dead, his dad was tentative, and he, himself, was trying hard not to bawl like a baby. What next? Was Bobby going to don a suit and tie and lose the trucker hat?

"Goddamn him," Dean's voice echoed in the still night.

"What?" John was taken aback at his son's response. He had expected grief, tears even. What he hadn't expected was the cold fury that was shining out of the younger man's eyes. For once in his life, he wasn't sure how to handle his oldest son. He had had plenty of trouble dealing with Sam, but never had he not known what to do with his eldest.

"How dare he do this?" Dean roared, jerking his body to face his father. The younger man's face emanated fury, as did his voice. He shook the letter at his father. "It's not his job to protect me! He never should have run off like he did. If he came to me, trusted me, none of this would have happened!" The young hunter's voice got louder and louder until John was sure that everyone in LA had heard him.

"Look, Dean," John tried to calm his son down, only to have said son round on him.

"What, Dad?" Dean said scornfully. "You gonna tell me that it'll all be okay? 'Cuz it won't! Maybe if you hadn't run off and left me with no word and no way to contact you, I wouldn't have had to get Sam from school, he wouldn't be dead!"

John Winchester was never one to be yelled at. He knew his son was hurting, but that didn't stop his own temper from rising. "Hey! That's enough!" his voice barked out like thunder in a summer storm. Usually, that was all it took to rein Dean in, but the death of his little brother pushed Dean past all normal limits.

"What?" Dean laughed contemptuously. "You want me to bow down like a good little soldier? Huh? Is that what you want? You wanna break me down like you did Sam when you sent him off on his own?"

A fist flew at Dean's head, but he dodged it easily before throwing one of his own. The older hunter moved out of the way of the punch, grabbing the arm that was swinging, and twisted it behind Dean's back. He held on like that, making sure his son couldn't go anywhere. John could feel Dean's ragged breaths coming in and out as he held his son in a firm grip. Because of that grip, he could feel when the angry breaths calmed, and the sobs began to take over.

Dean didn't know where all the anger came from; he figured it was probably genetic. Winchesters don't grieve, they get angry. That was true when his mom died, when Jess died, heck even when their dad went missing. They didn't cry or grieve; they looked for revenge. He had never taken a swing at his dad before, and he didn't know how the older man would react. But as he was being held there, his arm twisted behind his back, he felt the anger ebb away, only to be replaced by grief, grief so strong he felt as though he would drown in it.

The sobs came over his body without his consent, but once they started, he couldn't stop. He barely noticed when his father dropped his arm and turned him around to hold him in a more comforting way. They stayed this way for a long time, or at least it seemed to Dean. Finally the tears stopped coming, and he pulled away from his father. That was twice recently that he had broken down in front of his father. He stepped away to get himself together.

After a few minutes, John finally spoke up, his voice rough as sandpaper. "Let's go see how Bobby fared on all this."

"Yeah, okay," Dean replied, more subdued.

* * *

Bobby listened as Wesley reported to Angel and Gunn what they had found, or in this case not found, while they had been gone. After being told about the letter and drawing his own conclusions about its contents, his attention was not on the rambling ex-Watcher. Instead his highly toned hunter senses were turned to more personal, and pressing, matters. Even over the English voice he could hear shouting coming from outside, but made no move to intervene on the family business. He wasn't worried; the Winchesters might be a bunch of stubborn SOBs, but they were family. When things got quiet, nervousness overtook him for a moment. Quiet with the Winchesters was usually never a good thing. As the quiet carried on, the old hunter turned half an ear to the discussion of the AI team members.

"So what I'm hearin' from all that smart stuff you just said," Gunn looked at Wes with a small smirk on his face, "is that basically, you got nothin'. Right?"

Fred and Wes looked at each other before looking at Bobby. "Don't look at me," he drawled. "I'm with him. We got nothin'."

"Nothing, Bobby?" a quiet voice queried. All heads swiveled to see the Winchesters walking through the lobby doors. Both looked slightly defeated. Dean's eyes were red and slightly swollen, and John looked pale and shadowed. It was Dean who asked the question. Bobby just shook his head in the negative to the two fellow hunters. If possible, Dean's shoulders seemed to slump more.

"Has there been anything more with the demon?" John asked, looking.

" 'The demon' has a name," Cordy snapped as she joined the group from upstairs. "And no, Lorne has not seen anything else."

Silence overcame the room as everyone took in the lack of progress. The only noise that sounded was the flip of pages as Wes and Fred continued their search. Bobby was looking at Dean and John, assessing their mindsets from the way that they stood. Dean's arms were crossed, and he leaned against a wall. John's face contained a slight scowl, as he looked around at the group.

Gunn had taken a seat on the round couch thing that sat in the middle of the lobby. Angel was looking down, both hands in his pockets as he seemed to ponder something. Cordy was looking worriedly from Angel to the researchers to the stairs where Lorne was. She obviously wasn't sure what to do: stay here or check on Lorne.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by Fred exclaiming, "Wes!"

Said Englishman sharply looked at the young woman, before hurrying to her side. She was pointing at something in a large, old-looking book. The ex-Watcher bent over to get a closer look at the book, his lips moving as he read what was on the page to himself.

Dean looked hopefully at the two book-worms, thinking that something important was going to happen. Disappointment began to settle in, however, as he watched Wes shake his head and frown at the book. "Well?" Dean couldn't stand the not-knowing much longer. "You two whiz-kids gonna share with the rest of the class?"

"Sorry," Wes said as he emerged from the book, a small slump to his shoulders. "Fred found a small passage about the Avadon demon ritual…"

"That's what we want right?" Angel interrupted, his dark eyes boring into Wes.

"Yes, but as I was saying, the passage is about the ritual's effect on non-demonic supernatural forces, so no hope there."

Dean stilled at that. His heart began to pound. He had to ask, but this was so not the time that he wanted to bring this up. Trying to be nonchalant, "What do you mean, non-demonic supernatural forces? Like what?"

Not fooled by his supposed offhand attitude, John sent his son a sharp look, but Wesley was replying before he could question his son's motives.

"Well, despite what hunters like you think, there are supernatural forces that are good, or at the very least, not evil. Psychics, telepaths, the Slayer, even Angel here. They are all types of supernatural beings, or have supernatural powers, but they fight for the good of mankind."

"So psychics would fall under that passage that Freddie found?" Dean asked, casualness falling aside for earnestness.

"Dean, what are you going on about?" John growled, tired of his son's apparent inquisitiveness.

"Look, Dad," Dean began, suddenly feeling nervous. He shot looks at the AI team and Bobby. Since they were led by a vampire and consorted with demons, he wasn't worried about the AI team's reactions to his news. His dad and Bobby were a different story. For Sammy, though, he knew he had to do this. "Sam's been having nightmares."

"So? Your brother's been having nightmares since he was just a tyke," Bobby piped in, as John was content to continue to glare at his son.

"Not ones that come true."

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**WHAT'S COMING: a deviation from canon (even though I came up with it first!), a field trip, and a SUPRISE visitor!**

**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!**


	18. Chapter 17

**As promised (probably a first for me!), here is the next chapter for Crossed Paths! Lots of explain-y in this chapter, but it's not very long.**

**PLEASE READ THE A/N AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

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Chapter 17

"So? Your brother's been having nightmares since he was just a tyke," Bobby piped in, as John was content to continue to glare at his son.

"Not ones that come true."

"Excuse me?" John Winchester's incredulous tone echoed throughout the Hyperion Hotel.

Dean stared at his father unapologetically. "It started out as nightmares, and then he started havin' them when he was awake." He got up from where he was sitting and walked to the other side of the room, as everyone else watched the by-play between father and son.

"When were you gonna tell me about this?"

"We didn't know what it meant."

"Something like this starts happening to your brother, you pick up the phone, and you call me."

Dean walked over to John, not believing his dad, "Call you? Are you kiddin' me? Dad, I called you from Lawrence, all right? Sam called you when I was dying. Gettin' you on the phone—I've got a better chance of winnin' the lottery."

John, slightly taken aback at his son's tone, paused briefly before replying, "You're right. Although I'm not real crazy about this new tone of yours, you're right. I'm sorry."

There were several minutes of silence as Bobby and John digested the new information about Sam, Dean caught his breath from finally standing up to his dad, and the others watched the hunters get back on track.

Bobby was the first to break the silence. "So Fred, Wesley, what does that book say exactly?"

The two researchers looked at Bobby, slightly confused for a moment, having forgotten the book in the wake of the Winchester drama.

"Uh, well, the passage is actually written in Sumerian, so bear with me in translation," the ex-Watcher said, as he once again bent over to look at the large tome. For the next few minutes, Wesley muttered to himself as he traced the lines of the passage. "Basically," he explained, "if anything living, other than the Avadon demon itself, should enter the ritual circle as the incantation is intoned and finished, then that living thing's essence will be displaced, while the shell remains behind."

"I'm sorry," Dean groused, "essence? Displaced? Shell? English, please! You wouldn't think I'd have to ask that of an Englishman." The last part Dean muttered mostly quietly to himself.

"Well, a person's essence would be its soul, and the shell would be the body, right?" Fred explained, looking to Wesley for affirmation.

"Yes, I believe that to be the case," Wesley replied, while still studying the large book, "and by displaced I believe that instead of the soul moving onto the hereafter, whatever that may be, it merely remains on this plane."

"So Sammy's soul is just floating around out there somewhere?" Dean said, disbelievingly. "So, what? We need a big soul scooper to catch it out of the sky, like a bug catcher?"

Everyone looked at Dean at his question, most with amused or exasperated expressions. Oddly enough, Angel had an almost uneasy look on his face.

Wesley, one of the people exasperated with the young hunter, huffed at Dean's obliviousness, before retorting, "No we don't need a bug catcher. What we need is to re-soul your brother." At this statement, understanding seemed to dawn on the AI team, as the uneasiness grew in Angel's expression.

Bobby, John, and Dean looked at each other, to make sure they weren't the only ones in the dark. "I take it we are missing something," John drawled.

"Luckily, we just happen to know the exact ritual needed: the Ritual of Restoration," Cordelia supplied to the baffled hunters.

Bobby's eyebrows almost disappeared into his trucker hat. "A ritual like that is rare, if not nonexistent. And you yahoos just 'happen' to know the exact ritual we need?"

The AI crew looked at each other again, as Angel just shot brooding looks at everyone.

Wesley was the one to, once again, explain the situation. He looked between Angel and John before addressing Bobby and Dean, sensing that John probably knew the details. "How much has John told you about Angel?"

Dean shot his father an unreadable expression. "Nothing. I didn't know that Dad knew any of you until I came downstairs and saw him pointing a gun at his forehead."

"When Angel was a young lad, he was bitten and turned by a vampire. He went by Angelus then, also known as the Scourge of Europe, and was part of a notorious gang of vampires that terrorized Europe for almost 150 years." Seeing Bobby nodding, Wesley continued. "I figured that you, Bobby would know this; you seem well-informed. I have a feeling that Dean here, however, knows less about things such as these. No offense intended, I assure you," the ex-Watcher assured the young hunter at his slightly affronted expression. "Anyways, at one point, Angelus had a run-in with a gypsy clan. After killing a beloved member of the clan, the gypsies cursed him, with a soul."

"So we get the curse-thingy from some gypsies, and we can get Sammy back?" Dean asked, feeling a little out of his depth.

Wesley continued his tale, as though the blond had not interrupted. "This curse forced him, now Angel, to live eternally in guilt over the countless crimes he had committed. After many years, he found himself allied with the current Slayer of the time. About five years ago, through a series of events, he lost his soul and reverted to Angelus. The same gypsy clan that had cursed him had kept watch over him. So when he lost his soul, his gypsy watcher provided the Slayer and her friends with the means to re-soul him. As the former watcher of the same Slayer, I have had access to the watcher diaries and have obtained and kept a copy of the Ritual of Restoration. We also have, in our acquaintance, the only person known to have accurately performed the Ritual."

"That is all well and good," John interrupted, speaking over Cordelia's mutterings about the person mentioned. "But you seemed to have forgotten something. My son is dead. He has no pulse, isn't breathing, nothing!" By the end of his rant the hunter was nearly ranting but missed the sudden paling of his remaining child's face.

As he listened to his father growl at the private investigation group, inside he was indulging in a lot of self-flagellation. He couldn't believe that he had gotten his hopes up and completely forgetting about his little brother's…condition. He should have known things never go good for the Winchester family.

"Your son is a supernatural being. The rules don't apply here," Angel said smoothly, yet unrelentingly.

"My son is NOT a monster!" John roared, once again getting in Angel's face, looking more murderous than he had been yet.

"No one said anything of the sort!" Fred piped in. "Just 'cause someone is supernatural, or weird, or maybe spent five years in a different dimension living in a cave. That doesn't make them a monster. Kinda like Angel."

Once again a tense silence fell over the group. John stayed where he was, seemingly unmoved by Fred's odd speech. Hunter's weren't exactly known for their ability to see the grey of the supernatural world, and the eldest Winchester was definitely no different.

"Dad," Dean's voice sounded behind the elder hunter. "C'mon. It's Sam." Those words over anything else were able to get him to back down, although he didn't seem very happy about it. "So, you said it's different?" Dean tried to redirect the conversation. He was suddenly anxious to begin, so as to be doing something to rectify the situation.

"Yes, I dare say that when supernatural forces are at work, things can get a bit different," Wesley answered. "But I reckon that the only way to know if this will really work will be to try."

"Ok, I'm in. Where do we start?" Dean asked, assuming, correctly, that everyone else would be on board.

"Most of the supplies we need, we already have: some herbs, an Orb of Thesulah, and other supplies. I suggest we have the person who has performed the spell again to come and do the ritual."

"Where is this person?" Dean huffed. "I don't want to wait for some crazy magic person to get here to get my brother back."

"She only lives a few hours away."

"Hours?"

"Yes, hours. You will need those hours, however, to prepare for the ritual," Wesley warned, annoyed at Dean's impatience.

"Prepare? Prepare, how?" John jumped into the conversation, seeing his son angry and unlikely to keep on track.

"Well, here we need to gather the things needed, double check our supplies. We also need Sam," Wesley replied, glad to see the eldest Winchester calm for once. "I think you need to go get your son's body before anything happens to it."

"What do you mean Wes?" Fred asked, confused like the others.

"I mean, before he gets autopsied," Wesley continued on, seeing the sick looks everyone's face. "Luckily we live in a large city with a high crime rate, so there is a very good chance that he is merely stored, but you should make haste before that changes. I don't know what kind of effect the ritual would have if that were to happen."

"I…I didn't…," Dean stammered, shocked at the thought. He couldn't continue, and felt two separate, warm hands on his shoulders, as Bobby and his father tried to comfort him, feeling the same uneasiness at the thought.

Angel, ever the man of action, took charge. "Alright, same groups as not long ago. Me, John, Dean, and Gunn are going to the morgue. The rest of you get things ready here. Wes, give Will a call, would'ja? Tell her to come quick."

Everyone began moving after that. Wesley, Bobby, and Fred went to the office to gather the materials. Cordelia went upstairs to check on the long-quiet Lorne, Angel and Gunn went to the weapons cabinet for some low-key weapons, just in case; John and Dean went out to their cars to do the Sam.

Soon, the four fighters were ready to head to the morgue. They decided to take two cars, because they would need the space to lay Sammy out.

* * *

As Dean and John took off in the Impala and Gunn and Angel headed out in Angel's car, Sam watched them with a strange feeling of nostalgia and apprehension. Having already tried and failed at leaving the Hyperion, for some strange reason, the young hunter knew that he would just have to have hope in the four's ability to get him out of that place and back here, so he could get his life back.

When they had been gone before, he had waited anxiously for them to return. As he saw his family fight and grieve together, he felt as though someone was ripping his heart out. He had never meant for this to happen. If he had known he would cause this much hurt, he would never have left Dean on the side of that road. If hindsight is 20/20, then his foresight must be 20/80 at best.

Hearing the discussion of the group inside as they discussed his option, he felt, for the first time in what seemed the longest time, a flicker of hope. Sure he would have a lot to deal with if…when he got back: leaving Dean 'for his own good', dealing with his nightmares and his Dad, dealing with his Dad period. He would take all of it, if it only meant that he could return to his family.

All he could do now was wait.

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**Ok, so here's the deal. I realize that as of this chapter, the story goes really AU. Honestly though, I thought of the whole Sam-doesn't-have-a-soul thing before they did Season 6, I just hadn't posted it yet! That's why there is a difference between my take and the shows. NO PLAGARISM WAS MEANT IN THE WRITING/POSTING OF THIS CHAPTER!**

**Lemme know what you thought!**


	19. Chapter 18

**Ok, this time I have a very good-although not good for me- reason why this chapter is so late. My grandfather has been sick for awhile now, and a week ago, he passed away. So between the viewing and funeral and helping my father and aunts and the general grief of the matter, I kinda forgot. Luckily for you dedicated readers, however, my brother reminded me of my almost finished story, so _voila!_ The next chapter!**

**Thanks for all the reviews and just plain reading my story. I wonder though, if I can make it to 200 reviews? If I do, I will write a one-shot sequel or prequel or whatever, viewer's choice. I don't want y'all to think I am begging for reviews like other authors I have seen and been disgusted by. It's just a thought. I will try to get back on track with the last couple chapters.**

**DISCLAIMER: Not. mine.**

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Chapter 18

A warm blanket seemed to have fallen over Los Angeles as the night reached its majority. Two sleek, black cars pulled up in front of a cold, grey, stone building that seemed to loom in the night. The building lights, the ones that were still on, were dimmed, giving the whole building a hushed feeling to it. Out of the cars came four men: the oldest (or so it seemed) dressed casually with a hard look on his face accented by the slightly graying beard, the next was dressed completely in black from his hair to his shoes, a young black man with a bald head, and finally a leather coat-wearing blond with a slightly pale face. These very different looking men converged between the two cars.

"Ok, no one gets dead," Angel stated, "that's one thing AI always guarantees when we do something like this."

"As long as we get Sammy back, I don't care what happens to anyone else," John growled, his single-mindedness that enveloped him during a hunt coming to the forefront.

"No big. We go in, get your boy, and get out, knockin' out anyone who gets in our way. No problem," Gunn placated, moving in between the two, hoping to prevent yet another shouting match, especially since that would hinder them from the whole 'sneaking' part of the plan.

"Let's head out, then," John nodded in agreement and headed towards the dull building, Angel close behind.

"Wait!" Dean called out to the two, stopping them in their tracks. They both turned to look at Dean at the same time, a fact that Dean didn't notice, but Gunn did, evident by his not quite stifled snort of amusement.

"Dean?" John queried softly, knowing how unlike it was for his son to hesitate, especially when it came to Sam.

"Uh, lemme grab somethin' real quick," Dean said as he turned and headed back to the Impala. He opened the back door, rustled around in the back for a minute, then reemerged from the classic car holding a bundle of clothes and a backpack. The young hunter shoved the clothes in the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and jogged to catch up to his companions who hadn't moved since his call moments earlier. When he caught up to them, he finally noticed the questioning looks on their faces. Almost embarrassedly, the blond shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "I figured Sammy might need some clothes. You know, 'cause the whole…thing." This last statement he accented with a vague illustration with his hands.

"I didn't think about that," John commented. "Good job, Ace."

Dean couldn't help the smile that broke over his face at his father's praise. Even as the four continued to the doors of the morgue, Dean's mood seemed much improved.

After the previous exchange, an intense silence overcame the group as they prepared to enter the building. Angel and John took the forefront as Gunn and Dean covered the rear. When they reached the glass double doors, John began to pull out his lock-picking set. Before he could pull the small, black case from his pocket, the vampire reached out and pulled the right door open. Only John's long experience as a hunter kept the shocked expression off his face.

Gunn turned to Dean with a small smile on his face, "Y'all used to having to break in places, huh?"

Dean returned the smile and replied, "Yea, we work a lot of small town jobs. I guess a big city like this can afford a night guard in the budget."

As the four men entered the lobby, each of their minds was whirling with different cover stories and excuses for being there. As they reached the guard station, they lined up in front, curious at what they saw, or in this case, didn't see. There was no guard behind the desk.

"Well that's a little anti-climactic," Dean quipped, as the four looked at each other. "Since this is your town, you can play tour guide."

"You think we make a habit of visiting the morgue?" Gunn turned to Dean, his smile replaced with a more serious look now that they were down to business.

Dean's retort was interrupted by Angel's voice, with a grim tone to it, "We've got a problem here." As Dean and Gunn had been bantering with John observing, Angel had made his way around the guard desk, assumingly to check the video cameras to ascertain the guard's position. Instead, he found the guard, lying on the ground a small pool of blood pooling under him, seeping from a large wound on his neck.

A surge of curses sounded from the eldest Winchester, while Dean kneeled next to the body where Angel was. Gunn offered a deep sigh.

"Vampire?" Dean asked, looking at Angel next to him.

"Yeah. At least two," Angel replied staring intently at the wound on the dead man's neck.

"How can you…you know what, never mind," Dean shook his head as he stood from his position. He looked at his companions. "So what now? Do we go on or grab some weapons first?"

"Both," Angel said. Before Dean could question the vampire further, Angel pulled out three stakes from his jacket, handing the two extras to John and Dean, keeping the other. Gunn pulled his own from his back pocket.

"You guys always carry stakes?" Dean asked, looking between the two.

"Standard AI policy," Gunn smirked, glad to have gotten something over the cocky hunters.

"We're wasting time. Let's go. Keep your eyes and senses open," John practically growled, as he began stealthily walking down the hall that Angel pointed out, followed by Angel, Gunn, and Dean in the rear. The group made their way down a dim hallway with John and Angel alternately checking the doors on either side of the hallway. As they reached near the end of the hallway, the group approached a set of metal double doors. Holding their stakes ready, John and Dean stood by the left door while Angel and Gunn took the left. John and Angel, still at the front, place a hand each on their prospective doors. All four gave each other silent looks, checking that everyone was ready. At the silent count of three, John and Angel swung the doors open hard, moving to allow Gunn and Dean to speed past them to defend against anything that might attack.

In the room that they burst into, the only thing that needed to be defended against would be the horrible shade of green that someone decided to decorate the room in.

"Ugh, after we're done here, can we hunt down the person who decorated here and stake them too?" Dean quipped, looking around the room, which was set up to be a viewing room for loved ones, in disgust which showed plainly on his face and was reflected on his companions.

Suddenly, a vampire burst through the doors behind them, attacking the closest person to him: Gunn. The badly-dressed demon launched himself at the black man, before the others even realized he was there. Having taken Gunn surprise, the vamp was able to knock him out before turning to Dean, game face already on. As he lunged at the young hunter, Angel and John were already moving, but as it turned out, they were not needed. Dean was able to get his stake up in time so that the vampire basically dusted himself.

As the dusted vamp ashes settled onto the ugly carpet, lowered his stake, breathing heavily at the sudden surge of adrenaline that had overtaken him. Angel walked over to Gunn, checking on his teammate, but the bald man was already regaining consciousness.

"Everyone okay?" John asked brusquely looking at the three others.

"I'm good," Dean smiled.

"I'll live," Gunn groaned, as he stood mostly steadily. "I'll be even better if we can get the hell out of this ugly ass room."

"Let's go. We still have to do what we came for," Angel said. At his pronouncement, any joy at having killed something leached out of Dean, bringing him back to the cold reality which had been his world for the longest time.

Having covered the whole hallway on this side of the building, the group made their way back to the lobby with the dead guard. Going down the next hallway, the grim determination that was a constant in cases and hunts overtook them. They followed the same pattern as the last hallway. Once again, they found a set of double doors, this time on the opposite side of the hallway. Dean mused aloud that the rooms must join up, and since that was the viewing room, this must be where they keep the bodies.

Once again, they prepared to enter the room, this time preparing themselves better to face vampires that were very likely in the room. As smooth as a dance, Angel and John opened the doors while Gunn and Dean slid into the room, with weapons raised. Angel and John followed; the whole process taking only a few seconds. Thos few seconds, however, were long enough for the four to attract the attention of the dozen or so vampires that were standing in a circle around something in the middle of the room.

"Oh shit," Dean muttered as the surprised vampires got over their surprise and rushed at the four equally surprised good guys.

What followed was a dizzying blur of exploding dust and flying humans. Everyone was taking on multiple vamps, with Angel taking on at least five by himself. Eventually the vampires were whittled down to a more manageable number. That was when Dean noticed that there were a few vampires that seemed to be guarding whatever the group had been circled around. Things that monster's wanted to keep safe were things that hunters usually want gone. With this logic, Dean made his way to the guard vampires. In the melee, however, there was no sneaking, so they saw him coming. One came at him while the other stayed on guard. After several traded blows, Dean was able to knee the vamp where it _really_ hurts and staked the vividly dressed monster in the back as it doubled over in pain. Just as he was pulling the stake back out, the other guard grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed him into a wall. He crumbled to the ground as a sharp pain radiated from his shoulder where it had slammed into the wall. Before he could pull himself up, the vampire grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall. Even as the edges of his vision went black, the young hunter saw two things. One was the vampire leaning his head down to take a big gulp of Dean's blood; the other was his father's face appearing behind the vampire, pure fury radiating from his eyes as he jammed a stake into the vampire's back.

The vampire dissolved into a cloud of dust, which allowed Dean to slump down and regain his breath. As the young hunter took deep gulps of air into his starved lungs, he felt a familiar strong grip on his shoulder. He looked up into his father's concerned eyes. He nodded that he was alright, not ready to talk yet, as he looked up to survey the room. All of the vampires had been taken care of, and Gunn and Angel were crowded around looking at whatever the vampires had been trying to guard.

"What is it?" Dean croaked out, even as he stumbled over to look for himself. "It" was obviously some kind of ritual arrangement, but one that the hunter had never seen before. AS he looked to the AI team members, he realized they did not know what it was either.

"We dunno," Gunn replied, pulling his cell out of pocket to snap a few pictures of the arrangement. "I figure Wes might know. 'Course don't matter now." At this pronouncement, Angel proceeded to swipe the whole thing off the table and onto the floor causing several jars to break and spread whatever gross substances they contained across the floor.

"Yea, I guess it is," Dean agreed, looking at the mess on the floor. "I'm _so_ not cleaning that up!" The sound of doors opening and shutting behind him got his attention, and he turned to find his father opening the body drawers, looking at the person (or empty space), and then shutting the door. Silently, Dean sobered and started the same process at the drawers near him. After several minutes of searching, a voice called out in the tense silence.

"Here," John's voice sounded strangled, as though there was something keeping him from talking correctly. Dean made his way slowly to his father, each step seeming to take forever, but not long enough at the same time.

This was it. He was going to see his dead, or not-really-but-seems-like-dead, baby brother. Sure he saw him before, back when this whole nightmare started, but to be up close to Sam in this state…he wasn't sure he could do this. Before he knew it though, he was there, standing beside his brother. Sam looked peaceful, a little gray but almost as if he were sleeping, at least that is how he would seem to those who didn't know him well. Dean knew different; he knew that Sam was never this still when he slept. The nightmares never let him sleep peacefully like this.

To John, this was one of his worst nightmares come true. As he stared at his youngest son, it didn't matter that he wasn't really dead (as far as their theory went). He looked dead, and a father's heart was breaking. The hunter part of him knew that there was a good chance that this ritual thing wouldn't work and that his son, his baby boy, would stay dead, like this. Forever. That thought was enough to send chills down his spine. It was also enough to spur him into action.

"C'mon Ace. Let's get Sammy presentable," John ordered, knowing that his customary gruffness might be the only thing to get through to Dean at the moment. As the two Winchesters proceeded to dress the youngest member of their family, Angel and Gunn stepped out of the room to give them some privacy while also keeping guard.

After a few minutes, the Winchesters, all three, emerged from the metal doors. Sam was draped over his father's shoulder in a fireman's carry. The group made a quick exit from the building, deciding to take no chances that there were any vampires that escaped the fight. Angel and Gunn got into in the ensouled vampire's car while Dean and John got into the Impala after carefully laying the youngest hunter in the back. Twin rumbles sounded in the quiet night as the two black muscle cars started and drove off into the night.


	20. Chapter 19

**Hey guys! Sorry this is so late again (at least it's not months!). Things are still kinda crazy for my family. Thanks for all of your condolences. **

**This is much longer than my other chapters have been, so yay for you! Also, next chapter is REALLY long so I think I will be posting it in two parts. I will try to remember to have it posted tomorrow. **

**DISCLAIMER: Not mine.**

**Onto the big action chapter. Hope you like it. I'm not very good at it, I don't think, so let me know. Thanks!**

**A/N EDIT: Sorry guys! Just want to mention that your surprise visitor arrives in this chapter! It probably won't be too much of a surprise, but a cookie to everyone who guesses!**

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Chapter 19

A couple hours after the guys left for the morgue, those left behind had finally gathered everything that they needed for the ritual. Wesley had contacted their person, and they were on the way. Bobby and Fred organized the materials, double and triple checking that they had everything they needed.

Bobby was not about to let this thing mess up just because they didn't have enough stinky herbs. He may not have been around the Winchesters in awhile, the falling out between him and John had seemed bad enough to end any relationship the two hunters had formed, but he had been around the boys some when they were younger. If Sammy were to never come back (and part of him had strong doubts that the youngest Winchester ever would, but he tried to ignore that part of him on a regular basis), he didn't know if Johnny and Dean would ever recover. So he checked labels and smelled herbs, all to make sure that the small, broken family could be mended, at least as much as possible.

Just about the time that all the supplies had been gathered, Dean and John returned, with Sam slung over John's shoulder. The eldest Winchester saw him looking, gave him a slight nod, but never stopped moving, taking the stairs quickly, Dean on his heels. The mechanic could only assume that they were going to put Sam in a room. Wiping his hands of imaginary dirt, he proceeded to follow his fellow hunters up the stairs, leaving the AI team to fill each other in about the prospective events.

Hearing the soft murmurs of the Winchesters coming from a room ahead, Bobby slowed his steps. He told himself it was because he wanted to give the family as much time, but really he didn't know if he wanted to see Sam that way. Steeling his nerves, he gave the half-closed door a half-assed knock before making his way into the room. He stopped just inside the door, taking in the tableau before him. Dean was sitting on the foot of the bed, looking at his brother's still form on the bed, a wistful look on his face, as though he was recalling long forgotten memories. John was seated in a nearby chair looking between the two boys, a small, sad smile on his face. He looked up at Bobby when he entered the room. The older man was somewhat surprised to see the shine of tears in the man's eyes until his own eyes finally landed on the youngest member of their group. As a boy, Sammy had always been filled with a boundless energy, usually directed at asking questions. Damn that boy used to drive him crazy with all the whys and how's he used to ask. Seeing him lying there, gray and still, made tears come to his own eyes, and he was, at best, an honorary uncle. To have to see your son lying there… it had to be heart-breaking. He didn't know how he would cope if he had to see his son, or anyone that close to him, lying on a bed, dead. A foreboding cold washed over him, leaving his skin prickling in its wake. He resisted the urge to shudder.

"Hey Bobby," Dean spoke first, his voice hoarse and gravelly. "Got everything ready?"

"Yea," Bobby replied, looking in concern at the young man. "What's wrong with your voice, boy?"

"Oh, y'know, went and got Sammy, battled a dozen vamps, got strangled. Just another day in the life of a hunter," Dean joked sardonically, never taking his eyes from his baby brother's unmoving form.

"Excuse me?" Bobby all but shouted incredulously.

"We're fine," John sighed, not wanting the mother-hen that hides in Bobby coming out.

"Fine? You four idjits took on twelve vamps? Do you have a death-wish?"

"More like a life-wish, Bobby," Dean said quietly. "It's not like we could leave. Not with Sammy still there."

At Dean's words, any anger, borne of concern or not, bled out of Bobby, leaving him as tired as he was before. "I know, son."

Throughout the exchange, a variety of expressions flitted over John's face. Eventually he could not take it, the tension in the room, the concern from Bobby, and especially looking at his baby boy's dead face, he left with a muttered, "Gonna go check on things."

Bobby watched as the somewhat emotionally closed off hunter walked out the door, turning back to the devastated young man when John was out of sight. Dean was in the same position, as if he had no idea that his father had walked out. Although slightly unnerved at the blond's unwavering stare, Bobby felt it was up to him to offer comfort to Dean, since his father did not seem to be able to at the moment. The old hunter made his way to the side of the bed, carefully keeping his gaze averted from the youngest Winchester on the bed. "Dean," Bobby began, not really knowing what he could say to comfort the young hunter in front of him.

"Don't," Dean rasped out, his voice raw from the abuse the vampire had inflicted and the emotion welling in him. "Just…don't."

Bobby felt as though a vice had tightened around his chest. He could remember being that grief-stricken, a lifetime ago. He knew from his own memories of that time in his life that nothing he could say would help; it would only sound like placating, empty promises. So he laid his slightly dirty hand on the young man's shoulder, squeezing in comfort, support, and all the emotions and sentiments he couldn't verbalize. The two hunters stayed that way for a long time.

As Bobby tried to offer any comfort he could to the brother of Sam, the father was wandering the halls of the Hyperion, looking for the same thing. The hardships he had faced in his life- the war, losing his wife, raising two boys in the hunter's lifestyle—had left John Winchester with the inability to share his emotions and inner thoughts, an inability which often caused friction between him and his youngest son. Speaking of his son…

Whether his mind realized it or not, his feet had taken him to the only room which might provide some comfort to him tonight: the demon Lorne's room. The door was only slightly shut, so John knocked on the door even as he was pushing it open. Darkness engulfed the room except for a small light coming from the lamp on the bedside table. The hunter could see the green-skinned demon lying on the bed with what looked like a wet washcloth covering his eyes. John stopped where he was, not sure whether he should disturb the club owner. His decision was taken from him when Lorne laid his hand on his face and groaned.

"Sam says hi," Lorne said, sitting up in the bed, pulling the washcloth off his eyes as he did so. When he looked at the hunter in front of him, he was interested to see a brief flash of surprise on the man's face, before he was able to cover it.

"So he's still here?" John asked, looking around as if Sam was just hiding, like he used to do when he was younger and John or Dean had upset him.

"Yes, he's still here," Lorne answered, taking in the somewhat rumpled and tired man in front of him. The Host wondered what things he would see about this man if he were to read him, but that was something he knew would never happen. The impression he had gotten of John Winchester from his youngest son was of a hard man. The memories that bombarded his weary psyche at the entrance of the black-haired man depicted the tumultuous relationship that the two Winchesters shared. Emotions ranging from anger to hurt to safety to love made his mind reel, much like the first time that Sam and he had realized a connection.

"Wow, you sure did a number on this kid," Lorne muttered, not really meaning to address John, but astonished that a family that seemed as close as the Winchesters could have so many issues between them.

John bristled at the accusation, words that he had heard from his closest friends, worst enemies, and, now apparently, a loud-dressing, green-skinned demon. If there was one thing that he did not like questioned, it was his parenting skills (or lack thereof according to some). "What do you know demon?" John hissed out, eyes radiating a fury that had seemed previously to be reserved for Angel alone.

"Look, buddy, I only know what the kid here 'tells' me," Lorne shot back, "I'm just calling it how I see it." The demon looked about to continue when he winced and touched the side of his head slightly with his hand. "Ok, ok I get the picture."

John, brought slightly out of his anger at the change in Lorne, asked, "What picture?"

"Oh nothing. Just your sweet little boy taking up for you. After all the crap that's gone on, he still comes to your defense. Guess only he's allowed to criticize your parenting, huh?"

John smirked slightly at that, knowing that that was exactly like Sam. His youngest would tell him exactly what he was doing wrong as a parent, but the second a teacher or social services even implied something, Sam was in their face.

Lorne watched as John smiled slightly at whatever had crossed his mind. Despite the pain that the young psychic was causing him, Lorne was becoming a little attached to the kid. They hadn't even really spoken yet, and he could tell that the boy had a dry sense of humor, was crazy smart, and felt deeply. From the shared memories, Lorne could tell that there were a lot of unresolved issues with the man in front of him. Having been in the habit of offering emotional advice for the last several years in his club, the Host decided to try to mend some of the fences between father and son.

"Do you know what my powers are?" Lorne asked suddenly, jerking John from his thoughts. At the slightly suspicious look on the hunter's face, Lorne tried a different tactic. "I have this little club called _Caritas_. In it people and demons come to sing karaoke so that I can read their auras and tell them their futures. Sure I can do that without the singing, but I get better results, and who doesn't like a good karaoke?"

"So you can see people's futures when they sing for you?" John clarified.

"More or less."

"So since you have been communicating with Sam that way, have you seen his future?" John asked, looking slightly worried yet interested.

"Well with the kid here, it's a little different, probably because of that misplaced essence thing Fred was telling me about." Seeing the disappointment creep into John, Lorne continued. "But that's not to say I haven't seen _anything_."

"What did you see?"

"Uh-uh. I believe in singer-reader confidentiality. But lemme tell you. This boy's future is big. Like, he doesn't need Daddy-issues weighing him down, huge." The purple-clad person winced here. "Trust me, Sam is just as curious as you about what his future will be. But in this instance, I think not knowing is more of a blessing to the two of you than knowing. Just try not to let this distance that you two are keeping stay that way until it is too late for you to take back."

Seeing the hunter's taken aback expression, and feeling the confusion and desperate need for knowledge coming from the youngest Winchester, Lorne knew that the two would take what he said in consideration. Whether they decided to act on it was up to them. "Now if you BOTH don't mind, I would like to rest."

John nodded, his brow furrowed with deep thoughts already, and walked out the door.

Sam's mind was reeling with so many questions and thoughts: What did Lorne mean when he said that he had a big destiny?; it had been so good to see his dad; would he and his father ever get back to the way they once were? As he watched his father walk out, and Lorne fall asleep, Sam made his way to the corner to work his way through his thoughts. Hopefully, this ritual thing would work, and their family could make their way back to each other, like Lorne said, before it was too late.

Still pondering what Lorne had said, John was once again not watching where he was going. As he wandered down the hallways of the massive once-hotel, John managed to run into the one person he definitely did not want to talk to.

"Watch it John-Boy," Angel taunted as the hunter nearly walked over him, "you don't know what you'll run into in these dark hallways."

The eldest Winchester's eyes narrowed as the vampire in front of him adopted a nonchalant, yet somehow still threatening, attitude. "You may think you're some big shot here Angel, and you may have all these people fooled thinking you are some kind of hero, but I know the real you. 'The demon with an angelic face' is such an accurate name for you."

Angel's smile grew icier and brittle as John ranted at him. As he opened his mouth to retort with his opinion of the hunter, a furious and definitely feminine voice cut him off and joined the conversation. "Where the hell do you get off talking like that?" The two scowling men turned to see two equally scowling women. The taller of the two, Cordelia, continued on her rant, "Look, I know that you are having a hard time with Sam and everything, but that doesn't give you the right to constantly go at Angel. I don't know what you have heard about him, but he is one of the good guys: a champion for the Powers That Be."

"Yea," Fred piped in here, her small, Texan voice sounding steady and sure. "Angel has saved our lives before, several times. He helps the helpless."

John looked at the two women, noting their earnest expressions. He shook his head slightly at the two. "You ladies can believe whatever you want. I know what I saw, and I saw a monster." Here he glared straight at Angel, eyes so piercing they would have gone straight to Angel's soul if he had one.

To the girls' surprise, Angel did not get defensive or angry at John's declaration. His eyes went dark and his face adopted what Cordelia dubbed his "brooding face" before he took a step closer to John. Taking no heed of the two women, Angel growled at John, "You may know what you saw, but you also know why you saw it. You want to keep looking through those black-and-white glasses you have, you go right ahead. But if a vampire who works to help people is bad in your books, then what is a psychic who does the same?"

When John's face reddened slightly at the implication about Sam, Angel smirked knowing he had made his point before stalking off down the hallway. John stared after him, wondering to himself how the vampire had won the argument they had been having. After a few minutes, he remembered that he wasn't alone in the hallway. He turned back to the two women. Their expressions had shifted from the anger and defensiveness of before. Both of their faces reflected curiosity, while Cordelia's had a dash of pity mixed in. Ignoring the pity, John addressed the curiosity. "What?"

"Where did you and Angel cross paths before?" Cordelia questioned. She knew much of Angel's past, especially the last four or five years between Sunnydale and LA.

"We met a few years back, in a small town up the coast."

"Sunnydale?" Cordelia questioned, shocked.

"Yea, how did you know?" John asked the younger woman.

"That's where I met Angel. I was born and raised there," Cordelia answered.

"Wow! Small world," Fred laughed.

"Yea, I guess it is," John sighed, rubbing his hand over his wearied face.

"John," Cordy's voice had lost all anger and sounded only of compassion. "What happened?"

The hunter sighed at the question, knowing that, in a way, these people deserved to know, especially if they were going to work for Angel. They should know what they were really working for. "It was after Sam left for college. It was just me and Dean hunting. Sam and I weren't speaking at all, and Dean didn't seem to be too happy in my presence, or he was just missing his brother. I don't know. Eventually I got tired of the situation so I sent Dean on a simple hunt by himself." Seeing the looks on the women's faces, he defended himself, "I knew that before long Dean would be hunting without me always there, so I needed to train him to work without my help. I'm not going to defend myself to you."

"Sorry. Go on," Fred looked a little ashamed at their judgment.

"Anyways, I heard about these weird deaths that had been going on and had gotten worse in Sunnydale so I went there, even knowing I wasn't supposed to."

"Why not?"

"It's kind of an unspoken hunter rule: Don't go to Sunnydale. Too many hunters had died there, and there was talk of someone coming to Sunnydale to take care of the problem," he continued.

"The Slayer," Cordelia stated.

"Excuse me?"

"The 'someone' that was to take care of the problem. It was the Slayer, well it _is_ the Slayer," Cordelia explained.

"How do you know that? I didn't really even believe in the Slayer until a few years ago. Wait, Wesley said that he was a former Watcher. Does that mean he was the Slayer's Watcher? Why is he a former one?"

"I know that because I was part of the Scooby gang. The Slayer is a girl named Buffy. I went to high school with her, although I never really liked her. But once I found out about all the supernatural bad stuff, I helped out some with the rest of her friends. As for Wesley, he was her second, no wait, third Watcher. The first one died before she came to Sunnydale, the second, Giles, was fired by the Council for some reason, and then Wesley was assigned. But then Buffy quit the Council, so he was fired for incompetence, then he came here. That's it. Now back to your story."

"Right. So I went to Sunnydale to see what was going on. I was looking into a few leads that I had when I ran into an old hunting friend of mine, Bill Harvelle. We decided to team up in the hunt. He said that he had a good lead that whatever was hurting people could be found in one of the cemeteries there, so that's where we headed next. As we made our way through the cemetery, we heard fighting in front of us, so we made our way there. We saw two guys fighting. Not knowing what was going on, we decided to observe before making a move. Before we could do anything, one of the guys pulled out a stake and stabbed the other with it who then dissolved into dust. Knowing that we were now dealing with vampires, me and Bill left cover to meet up with who we thought was another hunter or at least a good guy. But when we approached him, he turned to face us, and to our shock, he was a vampire too. I hesitated— to this day I don't know why I hesitated— but Bill charged right in. We weren't prepared for a vampire though, and faster than I could blink, Bill was already dead on the ground, a stake sticking out of his chest. Both me and the other guy stood there for a few seconds both in shock, me shocked that Bill was dead, and I guess the other guy because he didn't turn to dust. My shock turned into anger though and I unloaded my shotgun into the thing's chest. It knocked him to the ground, and I made my way to Bill's side. I sat beside him as he died. By the time I looked up again, the vampire was gone. I found out later from a contact I have that the vampire was no other than the ensouled version of Angelus. Even with a soul and supposedly good, he killed my friend, a fellow hunter. And that, ladies, is why I 'constantly go' at that monster." John finished his story with a growl before stalking away, leaving two shocked women in his wake.

"He's kinda cute."

The female voice coming from behind him startled Dean from whatever thoughts had him spaced out. He turned to see Cordelia leaning casually on the door frame, her brown hair framing her face and accenting the sweet smile on her lips. Taking a minute to appreciate the beauty in front of him, Dean smiled his best 'you-know-you-want-me' smiles. "Actually I got the looks in the family. He got the brains. You just can't see his oversized egg-head 'cause he's laying down."

The brunette just laughed as she made her way fully into the room, taking a seat in the chair that John had vacated awhile back. She continued to tease the hunter in front of her, glad to see a smile on his face for once, "I don't know. The only egg-head I see here is yours."

"You're just sayin' that 'cause you want me."

"Yea, right. By the way, I have this great oceanfront property to sell you in Kansas." For some reason, unknown to Cordy, the atmosphere of amusement cooled dramatically at her last statement. "Was it something I said?" she asked as she noticed the pain in Dean's eyes.

"It's okay," he smiled sadly, looking back to his brother on the bed. "I was born in Kansas. We lived there until my mom died."

"Oh," Cordelia looked slightly abashed. "Sorry, didn't mean to bring up more bad memories."

"You couldn't know."

Silence stretched between the two as they both pondered recent events. Cordelia was the first to break said silence. "So I just had an interesting talk with your dad."

"Really?" That seemed to catch Dean's attention.

"Yeah, he told me and Fred how he first met up with Angel," Cordelia stated. Seeing the curious look on his face, she continued, "he said he met him on some hunt in a town called Sunnydale, which is where I grew up coincidentally. Your dad said he met Angel in a cemetery, where there was an accident, and another hunter died. That's why your dad hates Angel so much."

"Huh," Dean seemed to think about it for a moment, before shaking his head slightly. "Makes sense. Right now I don't really care. I just want my brother back." At his last statement, his voice, already strained due to the choking vampire, broke slightly. He cleared his throat and looked away from Cordelia's gaze.

Silence once again settled over the two, this one more comfortable than the last. Sometime later, a soft knock pulled both of their attention to the door. There stood Fred and a young red-headed woman, who spoke first.

"Hey. Who's ready for some hocus pocus?"


	21. Chapter 20

**Hello to all my faithful readers! The most horrendous updater has returned! And to celebrate this return, I will be posting the REST of this story (which is just this REALLY long chapter and the epilogue). I know I said I would upload this like forever ago, and I don't really have an excuse, except that my mom read this story and basically told me it was crap. Sooooo my confidence has taken a hit. Because of that as well as the knowledge that I have done to you readers what I hate writers doing to me (leaving me hanging FOREVER), I will no longer be writing fan fiction. This is my last anything. Of course I have, like, A MILLION plots zooming through my heads. If I do ever get the urge or confidence to write again, I will only post if everything is written. **

**So thanks for reading my humble little story, over the last five years. IF you're just finding me now, :::waves::: Hello! Hope you enjoyed it! See ya around!**

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Chapter 20

"Willow!"

Dean watched in slight confusion as Cordelia got up to greet the new arrival. As the brunette reached the redhead, the two young women gave each other big smiles but didn't hug as Dean expected them to. In fact, there seemed to be a slight air of awkwardness between the two. The awkwardness faded, however, as the two people began to catch up, trading gossip and news about people that, he assumed, they both new.

"Hey Cordy. How ya been?"

"Oh, you know, saving the world, looking fabulous. Just the usual."

"Same ole Cordelia."

"Yea, not really, but kinda. What about you? How are things in Sunnydale?"

Here the redhead, Willow he presumed, got a little tense—her smile turned just a little bit fake—"Oh, everything's fine. Everyone's fine."

Dean didn't know this chick from the last redhead he met at a bar, but even he could tell that she was in major denial. Whatever was going on wherever she was from, everything was not fine. Before he could be subjected to anymore girl talk, the young hunter decided to interrupt. "Hey. Hi. Glad you two have caught up. Who ARE you?" he butted in, directing his last question to the newcomer.

"This is Willow," Fred piped in, gesturing at the girl beside her as if showing off a prize on a game show.

"Well, now that THAT is cleared up," Dean snarked at the young Texan.

"You must be Dean," Willow smiled at him. "Hi. I'm Willow, like Fred here said. I'm here to fix your brother."

"Wait. What? Fix my brother? You're this badass person that we're waiting for?" Dean sputtered, assessing the young woman before him. She barely looked twenty, and she was the person he was supposed to trust his brother's soul to?

She must have noticed the doubt on his face, and she rushed to correct him. "Hey buddy. I may be small—although my friend Buffy is even shorter than me— and young, but I am a badass Wicca, so don't make me use my magic on you."

At her threat, as he saw it, the hunter in him came to the forefront and his doubt turned to suspicion. He narrowed his eyes at her, as though gauging the danger that she could present to himself and his brother. "A witch?" Dean hissed. "You want me to trust a _witch_ with my brother's life, his soul?"

Willow looked taken aback at the venom in his voice, trading slightly nervous looks with Cordelia, who had not foreseen the difficulty that a hunter would have with using magic, even to save his brother's life.

Before either woman could make any kind of reply to his accusation, a gruff voice sounded behind them. "Don't be such an idjit, boy."

Dean's head popped up slightly to meet Bobby's gaze as the older hunter excused himself through the girls to stand next to his younger counterpart. "Bobby?" his voice had a hint of confusion and a barely noticeable challenge.

"How did you think we were going to get your brother back? Catch his soul with a net and then shove it down his throat?"

"No. I mean, I knew we had a ritual, but I didn't realize we needed a _witch_ to do it."

"Hey mister, I take offence at the way you keep saying witch. I don't know who you've talked to, but I am a Wiccan witch, and we are good, not evil." Willow re-inserted herself in the conversation, her cheeks turning a little red, and a small frown replacing the smile on her face.

"I've talked to witches, ones that have tried to kill me. THAT'S where I'm getting my information," Dean retorted, heatedly.

"Cool it kids. Just like there are shades of gray when it comes to psychics and stuff, the same goes for witches," Bobby explained, shooting a sharp look at Sam then back to Dean to get his point across. After that, it was as if someone had stuck a pin into a Dean balloon, as he deflated before everyone's eyes. He turned to look at Sam's still form on the bed before turning back to Willow.

"You really think you can help him?" This time when he spoke all hints of malice and suspicion had vanished.

Seeing that the man was no longer treating him as a threat, Willow's smile was back in full force. "You betcha. Lead to me the ritual, and you'll have your brother back before you can say Scooby-dooby-doo."

At Dean's odd look, she shrugged her shoulders, "I guess it's more of an inside joke."

"Ok, well let's do this," Dean said, wanting nothing more than to get things going. The sooner they do this ritual thing, the sooner he could have his little brother back, and things would get back to normal. He turned to Willow, figuring she would know the best way to go about things. "So should I leave Sam here or…?" he trailed off, seeing the quick thoughtful look flash on her face.

"Well, the last time I did the ritual, I wasn't anywhere near the person. I can't imagine that it would hurt, though, to have him nearby to see the results of our labor quickly."

Dean nodded at her logic, before turning to Bobby and gestured for the older hunter to help him carry his gigantic brother down to the lobby. The whole group of them-Cordelia, Fred, Willow, Bobby, Dean, and Sam- headed down to the lobby.

As they reached the lobby, they found the rest of the group, minus Angel and John, already waiting in the lobby. Someone seemed to have thought ahead, and there was a mattress already set up on the floor of the lobby. He and Bobby laid Sam on the mattress, and then joined the others who were congregated around what was once the check-in desk when the place was a hotel.

Dean looked around, wondering where his father was. "Where's my…." he began but stopped himself when he saw his dad, followed by Angel emerging from the double doors that led to the outside patio.

The two darkly dressed men came in through the doors wearing identical frowns, which were a step up from the scowls that normally covered their faces when in the presence of one another. The two stopped their progression towards the group when they noticed the curious and confused looks everyone was shooting their way. Not wanting to get into what they had been doing, both also shot identical looks telling the others to back off.

Dean reflected on his father and the ensouled vampire. The two seemed to be growing more and more alike the more time they spent here. Or maybe he was just noticing it more. Either way, Dean was itching to get out of this place. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the help these people were given, but if he were honest with some small part of himself, if it weren't for these people, they probably wouldn't be in this mess, at least not this bad of a mess.

"We doin' this?" John said, coming up to the young witch of the group. Obviously they had already been acquainted, Dean ruminated. He wondered about his dad's reaction to the witch's presence, especially in light of his own reaction.

"Sure thing, Mr. Winchester," the redhead smiled at the man before her. Hearing a snort coming from behind her, she turned to see a smirk on Dean's face.

At her questioning look, he stated, "I haven't heard someone call him that since Sammy was in middle school and got suspended for fighting."

"Sam? Fighting?" Bobby looked incredulously between the two Winchesters. "You sure you didn't get Sam mixed up with yourself?"

"There are some things that even Sam would get in trouble for," John said evenly, pride glimpsing through his words.

"You didn't care about that at the time," Dean joked. "If I remember correctly, someone was pickin' on this fat chick, and Sam stepped to intervene. When words wouldn't work, he took a page out of big brother's book. Man, I don't think Sam sat down for a week after that."

John and Dean shared a smile at that remembered memory.

"Your brother sounds like a hero for geeks. As a former geek myself, I can't wait to meet him. So let's boogey," Willow smiled at the two family members in front of her. She turned to Wesley, "You guys got everything I need?"

"Yes, we prepared things just as it is written."

"Coolness. Alright, Wes you light the candles and spread the bones and runic stones. Bobby, you get the stinky incense, and Fred you help with the incantation."

"I have a question," Cordelia piped in, nervousness evident in her voice. "Will doing the ritual have any effect on Angel?"

"Well, seeing as he already has a soul, I don't think anything should happen," Willow responded, giving Angel a quirky wink.

As soon as Wesley and Bobby were done, a tense silence fell over the group. Fred began the ritual, reading the first line, "Quod perditum est, invenietur."

Willow continued, reading the words from a very old tome, looking more serious than she had this whole time, "Nici mort, nici al fiinţei," until suddenly she stooped.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, "Why did you stop?"

"This won't work," Willow said, as she laid the tome on the desk.

"What? What do you mean? I thought you guys said this would work?" Dean was beginning to panic now. His hopes had been raised; he thought he was going to get his baby brother back. He didn't know if he could stand to lose Sammy all over again.

"Yeah, about that…oops," Willow gave a small smile before walking away. Just as Dean was about to tear into the witch for her apparent apathy for their dilemma, she was suddenly walking back, with a piece of paper in her hand. "Sorry. I had forgottten that Tara, another witch, and I had reworded it. The original ritual was meant as a curse. Since we don't want your brother to walk around cursed for the rest of his life, we had to substitute a word or two. But don't worry, this new version should work."

At the redhead's words, Dean felt the pressure that had developed in the last few minutes recede. He heaved a large sigh, before trading looks with his father and Bobby. He was comforted to see the same fear receding in their eyes; he wasn't alone in the terror that Willow's initial words had brought.

The young woman gave them a slight smile, apologized again, and made her way back to where she was standing before. "Let's try this again. Fred…"

Here Fred read again, "_Quod perditum est, invenietur_."

Willow once again picked up,

"_Nici mort, nici al moarte,  
Te invoc spirit al trecerii,  
Gods, bind him, cast his heart from the evil realm,  
Te implor, Doamne; nu ignoră aceasta rugăminte,  
Lăsa orbită să fie vasul care-i vă transportă sufletul la el,  
Este scris, aceasta putere este dreptul poporul meu de a conduce,  
Redă trupului ce separe omul de animal.  
Aşa să fie, cu ajutorul acestui magic glob de cristal.  
Aşa să fie! Aşa să fie!  
Acum! Acum!_"

Dean watched in amazement as the seemingly innocent woman, who had mostly been all smiles and bubblieness, seemed to change in front of him. Her happy voice had deepened, her eyes turned black, and power, an amount he had never felt before, exuded from every pore in her body. Dean took the time to be grateful that this powerful witch was on their side, because he couldn't begin to imagine the damage that she could do with her power.

Dean braced himself for whatever effects the spell would bring. As a rule, hunters steered clear of mystical things like spells. Sure they would do the odd exorcism or summoning, but a flat out spell was something that Dean had not been exposed to, except in movies. So he prepared himself for shrieking winds or thunderous bangs.

As the now black-eyed witch finished the spell, a hush of anticipation filled those around her. Then, just as suddenly as her eyes had turned, Willow was once again normal looking, sporting a small grin. "Well, that was more fun than last time."

The hunters shared looks between themselves. "Did it work?" John's voice rumbled out, hope and dread warring in his tones.

Willow looked around at the group, taking in each of their expressions, locking eyes with Dean last. It almost took her breath away to see the fear and hope lurking there, a look so vulnerable that she somehow knew he would never normally wear. She opened her mouth to speak, not even aware of what she would say, when a gasp interrupted her before she made a sound.

A gasp sounded out in the lobby, sounding as though it had been drawn from the very core of a person, a sound that was painful and heartbreaking and the most beautiful thing that Dean had ever heard. It was the gasp of his baby brother.

Like a flash of lightning, John and Dean were at the side of the youngest member of their broken, little family. Sam was still laying flat on his back on the mattress, but instead of being deathly still, his body constantly moved, his chest heaving up in down as his lungs got used to breathing again, his large, slender hands grasped the edge of the mattress on either side, and his eyes were roving over everything in his field of view before latching onto the visage of his older brother. "Dean?" his voice soft and rough breathed out before he suddenly went limp again, eyes shut and head tilted to the left.

Panicked Winchester eyes met each other before looking back down. John leaned over his youngest, his hand reaching for the ever-important pulse point. He struggled to contain the shake in his hands as he placed his fingers on the boy's neck. His body went slack when he felt a steady _thump thump thump_ under his calloused digits.

Seeing his father's relief took the edge off his panic, but Dean was not satisfied that his brother had apparently passed out. He grasped Sam's shoulders before shaking hard. "Sam!" he barked out, not knowing whether to expect a reply or not.

"Leave him be, Dean," a soft voice and hand on his shoulder took his focus off his brother. Cordelia was smiling at him. "He's okay. Just sleeping."

"Yes, who knows what toll the Ritual may have had on his system," Wesley said. "He may yet sleep for awhile. It is important that he gets all the rest he needs."

"Why?" Dean's voice rose. "Can he relapse?"

"Nah," Willow butted in. "He's just gonna be a little whoopty for awhile. I bet it's kinda crazy havin' your soul shoved back in. Hmm...I wonder that he will remember about everything."

"Yes, that is most interesting. You know there are a lot of theories about the separation of a soul from the body," Wesley's eyes had a bright shine to them at the thought.

"Theories, schmeories. We got Sam back. That's all I care about," Dean muttered, his eyes softening as he took in his brother, who was no longer laying still but tossing gently, his eyes moving rapidly under his eyelids. His big-brained brother couldn't stop thinking, even in his sleep.

"I agree," Bobby said, studiously ignoring the slight choking sensation in his throat.

A whole day had passed before Sam stirred from the deep sleep that had gripped him. His awakening began, as many do after a long sleep, with faint sensation of floating to the surface of a lake. The first real thought he had was of a broken spring poking him in his back. Other sensations drifted in his thoughts: the coarseness of whatever he was laying on, the smell of dust and old books, the sound of something or someone breathing.

As he took in all the sensations, the young hunter tried to recall the reason for him being wherever he was. The memories slammed into him like a semi. He had been with Dean...splitting up...getting stabbed...that god-awful pain with the Avadon demon...being alone and invisible...seeing his brother, his father, Bobby...the feeling of a noose tightening around his neck, dragging him to his body...pain as his body kicked back into life...losing consciousness.

The rush of memories propelled him out of bed. Before he even thought about moving, he was standing in what could have been any of the numerous hotels he had lived in during his youth. His eyes roamed over everything, taking it all in like a dehydrated man takes in water. His gaze came to a stop on the sight of his brother and father slumped in chairs around a bed, the bed he presumably just popped out of, heads lolled and mouths slightly open, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.

A small smile broke out on Sam's face. It wasn't often that one could catch his brother or father unawares like this, much less BOTH of them. He thought of all that time he spent observing his family as they grieved and planned, unable to really communicate or reach out. But now...if his memories were to be believed, then he was back, and he could now...

_THUMP_

The loud noise shocked both sleeping Winchesters awake, both gazes going automatically to the bed. Seeing it empty, their gazes shot to the rest of the room. Seeing nothing, they got up, intent on finding the youngest hunter, but not expecting to find him laying flat on the floor silently chuckling to himself.

Sensing their stares, Sam pushed himself up so that his upper body was propped by his arms stretched out behind him. "Hi," he said simply.

"Hey," Dean replied, grinning like a fool at the very alive, very Sammy Sam in front of him.

"Why are you on the floor?" John asked, concern and humor coloring his rough voice.

"Well, I got tired of the bed," Sam joked.

Dean and John both laughed.

"Actually I got up, saw you two, and went to shake you or just touch you, when my legs gave out. I guess they are a little out of practice."

"Yea, well, that's what you get for layin' on your ass all day," Dean joked, leaning over with his hand outstretched to help pull his brother up.

Feeling the warmth of Sam's hand as it gripped and pulled on his own made Dean's smile all the wider. As Dean helped pull him up, John went over, put an arm around his chest to help guide him back to the bed. What happened instead was Sam continued the motion until he had grabbed his father into a hard, comforting hug.

John felt tears well up and something choke his throat as his youngest son's arms tightened around him and his head burrowed into the corner of his neck and shoulder. The father felt more than hear his son say something. Placing his hands on the young man's shoulders and gently pushing him back to stare at some equally watery eyes. "What was that son?"

"I'm sorry, Dad," Sam said, his voice choked with sorrow and guilt.

"Me, too."

Father and son shared a long, understanding look. They would have to talk later, or argue as their wont, but in this moment, they were okay. They were together.

The moment was interrupted by a cough from the other Winchester. "C'mon. Let's get Sammy back in the bed." Dean put his hand on Sam's back, trying to subtly push the floppy-haired man towards the bed.

Sam, however, had different ideas. Breaking contact with his father, he then turned to his brother, taking in the pale skin and dark circles under the eyes. The man looked completely and utterly exhausted. "Wait, Dean."

"C'mon Sammy. You need to lie back down."

"No. I need to tell you..."

"You can tell me later," Dean said, turning away from his brother.

"No, Dean. Now," Sam insisted, grabbing his brother's arm and trying to turn him back around. Even as he managed to get Dean's body turned, the elder brother's gaze was stubbornly averted. "I know you're mad. Probably really pissed. But I also know you were really scared." He just glared as he saw Dean about to refute that statement. "No, I know. I saw you. I saw all of you. I know you thought I was dead, and I know how hard you tried to get me back. By all rights, you should have left me to rot after what I did to you..."

Here he was interrupted by Dean's voice, thick with emotions, too many to tell apart, "No. Don't say that. Don't..."

"I'm sorry." The two words were choked out, as Dean finally met Sam's eyes. Tears had leaked out of the younger man's eyes, trickling down his face like a gentle stream flowing downhill. "I know you read the letter, so you know why I did it. Not that it mattered anyways. But I am sorry that I left you. Again. I should have told you. If I had, then none of this would have happened. You wouldn't have thought...you wouldn't have had to..." Here Sam's voice tapered off, too overcome with guilt and regret to come out.

Words weren't needed then, anyways. Winchesters were men of action more than words, and there was only one action that Dean could think of to comfort himself and his brother. He reached forward, grasping his brother tightly and drawing him into a tight hug, feeling for just a moment, that if he let his brother go, he would lose him forever.

Sam clung to his brother, small, but tightly controlled sobs shaking his body. He knew that physical contact like this was uncommon in their family, and for Dean to have initiated it, Sam knew that the older brother needed the comfort just as much as he did. The young hunter didn't know how long they stood there, clinging to one another in guilt, comfort, desperation, and many other emotions, but he figured it probably wasn't long, despite how it felt.

Slowly, the two let go, each's masculinity demanding that they compose themselves as they recovered from the slightly "chick-flick"-ness of the moment. Dean coughed awkwardly while Sam passed a subtle hand over his face, removing all evidence of tears.

"So...," the youngest Winchester drawled. "What's a guy gotta do to get some food around here? I haven't eaten in...I don't know. How long have I been, you know?"

"Well as far as we can tell, a little over a week," a new voice answered.

Sam spun around to take in the new member of the conversation. "Hey! Bobby," he greeted.

"Sam," the mechanic said, the smile on his face saying it all, as he leaned against the door frame. The older man took in the small family in front of him, observing how the two older Winchesters were looking at the youngest in joy and relief, as said youngest grinned hugely.

A yell from the lobby broke the moment between hunters, between family.

"PIZZA'S HERE!"

"Yes!" Sam exclaimed, heading towards the door, as fast as his stiff limbs would let him. "I am so hungry." As the younger man passed him in the doorway, Bobby placed a worn hand on his shoulder, keeping it there as he followed him out. The last two members followed behind, chuckling softly at his enthusiasm.

The group was making their way to the lobby, when another person emerged from a room, obviously heading for food as well.

As the head of the group, Sam took in the loud blue suit, bright green skin, and small, red horns. "Lorne!" he shouted, his long legs speeding up to catch up with the Host.

Lorne turned as he heard his name called out. "Well as I live and breathe, if it is my little Headache,"  
he called out, waiting as the young man reached him.

At the nickname, Sam paused, slightly shuffling his feet and rubbing the back of his neck. "Yea, sorry about that."

"Oh, it's okay, hun. What's a few migraines between friends, huh?" Lorne laughed. "I don't know about you, but all that 'communicating' made me hungry. Shall we?"

The two fell in step with each other, the other hunters falling slightly behind while exchanging bemused looks. Before long the group reached the staircase leading down to the lobby, the enticing smell of pizza sauce and garlic seasoning invading the men's noses, causing them to speed up a fraction more.

Four of the guys picked up speed at the smell, as one of them, Sam, fell to the back ever so subtly. As the group gathered around the pizza, Sam came to a standstill, taking in the tableau before him. It was fascinating how these very different people had come together in this situation to help him. The thought of that amazed and slightly humbled him. He realized then that perhaps he wasn't meant to stop that vision from happening. Maybe he had had it so that this group of wonderfully different people would be put together.

As these thoughts drifted from his mind, a sudden and irrational fear overtook him in an instant. What if he had only dreamed that he was back? What if they never fixed him? What if…

These panicking thoughts were interrupted by a chirpy, "Hi!" coming from the redhead—Willow, his brain reminded him— that had come to stand before him. "I'm…"

"Willow. Yea I know," Sam replied, her presence having shaken his morbid thoughts away.

"So you DO remember?" the young witch was almost bouncing now with excitement. "We were wondering if you would remember anything."

"Yep. I remember everything. Well, everything I was around for. I DID spend a lot of time with Lorne."

Everyone had stopped eating to pay attention to the conversation. Realizing introduction were unnecessary at that point, Cordelia merely motioned Sam over and gestured at the many pizzas as she took a large bite of her own piece.

For the next few hours, the group got to know one another in ways that life or death situations rarely allow strangers to know one another. Sam and Wesley enjoyed intellectual conversations, while Dean and Gunn bonded over weapons. John and Willow, surprisingly, got on well discussing the various supernatural creatures each had come across. Bobby took turns taking part in all conversations, displaying his knack for knowing many different things. As it was late, everyone decided to bunk down for the night in the many rooms at the Hyperion.

The next morning saw many different departures. The four hunters were leaving, and Willow apparently had some pressing matters where she lived. Hugs, handshakes, phone numbers, and thanks were exchanged as the new friends said their goodbyes. Even John and Angel managed semi-civil grunts of farewell to one another.

Willow left first, telling Angel that she would tell everyone hi from him and giving him a hard hug.

Sam looked back at the AI team as he and his family turned to leave. "Thanks again." He followed the other hunters out. They continued until they stood against the two vehicles. Silence descended on the group.

"You're leaving again aren't you?" Sam asked, looking at his father, his face not displaying whatever emotions he felt at the prospect.

"Sammy, this fight is just starting. And we are all gonna have a part to play. For now, you've got to trust me, son. Okay, you've gotta let me go," John said, looking deep into his youngest's eyes.

If this thing in Los Angeles hadn't happened, then Sam might have fought with his father on this. Maybe argued to be part of the fight. After seeing his family's grief at his supposed death, the young hunter just couldn't bring himself to argue. He knew the next time he saw his father that resolve would most likely be broken, but for now, he decided to do what his father asked—to trust him.

All three of them are silent for a moment, close to tears. Finally, Sam patted his father's shoulder once, then let go. John and Dean shared a look, then John walked to his truck, Bobby already in the truck to be dropped back off at his home in South Dakota. Once there, the eldest Winchester looked back at his sons one more time. "Be careful, boys."

Sam and Dean nodded at the sentiment, watching as their father climbed in the monstrous truck and drove off. The two shared sad looks before heading to the Impala. They got in, unconsciously shutting their doors at the same time, and took off in the opposite direction.

If someone listened closely, they could hear the distinctive vocals of Brian Johnson sounding from the slightly open windows.

_Back in black. I hit the sack. I've been too long. I'm glad to be back_


	22. Epilogue

Epilogue

* * *

_BEEP_

_Hey Dean, it's Cordy. Weirdest thing. Turns out Angel is a daddy. His ex-girlfriend/ ex-vampire chick showed up not long after y'all left with a bun in the oven. Weirdest. Thing. Ever. Call me back._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Wes. It's Sam. Quick question. Any idea how to kill a Tulpa?**

* * *

_BEEP_

_*SNIFF* Hey Dean. It's Fred. I just thought you might want to know that Connor is gone, and Wesley *SNIFF* well, he was hurt, but he's okay, but he's not part of us anymore because he betrayed us and…and…and…*SNIFF* Talk to you later._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Angel. Dean. Ever heard of the Colt? Some magic gun made by Samuel Colt?**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Dean, it's Gunn. Look, man, things are crazy here. Turns out Connor wasn't dead, just trapped in a hell dimension and is now back, a teenager, and holding one hell of a grudge. And now Angel and Cordy are both missing. You haven't heard from them have you? Hit me back._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Cordelia. It's Sam. We, uh, we caught up with the thing that killed our mother. Well, I guess it caught up with us. Anyways, we were in an accident trying to get away. I got off fine, Dean ended up being okay, but Dad…uh, he, uh, he didn't make it. Just thought y'all'd like to know.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Sam, my little Headache. How's it hanging? Just got back from a hell-ish trip to Vegas. Thought I'd hit you up, let you know everyone's back to where they're supposed to be. Except Cordelia's memory is shot, but we'll figure things out. Oh, gotta go. Ciao._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Hey Fred. I assume you're the research gal now. Um, need some info, if you can. If you could, look up everything you can find on crossroads demons. Quickly, please. I need to make sure my brother doesn't do anything stupid.**

**BEEP**

**Hey Gunn. Have you seen Sam? He's gone missing, and I've searched everywhere for him. I don't suppose you've heard from him. Let me know if you do. By the way, what's up with the whole night thing going on over there? Angel get tired of hiding in sewers? Let us know if you need help.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Hey Dean, it's Fred. I just wanted to let you know we might be out of touch for awhile. We are de-souling Angel. Don't worry, we'll have a Slayer to back us up, but If you don't hear from us in a few weeks, maybe you could come here, see if we're still alive._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Remember when I called awhile back and asked if you knew anything about crossroad demons? Well, I need you to look even more because Dean went and made a deal with one to bring me back to life.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Sam, its Wesley. I'm quite glad y'all stayed away from here. Things got out of hand very fast. I hate to inform you but Cordelia is in a coma. We are unsure if she will ever wake up. Please tell your brother. I know he and her got on quite well. I do hope you two are doing okay after the Jasmine incident. What was with that odd storm Wyoming? Was that you two?_

* * *

**BEEP**

**Angel. Dean. You wouldn't happen to know some British chick named Bela Talbot would you? She says she's an acquirer of 'things'.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Just to let you know, we aren't evil. Yes we are working for an evil law firm, but we are not evil._

_BEEP_

'_ello hunter. Name's Spike. Got your number off Peaches phone. Just wanted to see who these Winchester blokes the gangs always on about. Not actually calling you by myself. Needed some hands, being non-corporeal and all._

* * *

**BEEP**

**Hey Wes. It's Sam. I was wondering if you know if it's possible for the dead to reach out and communicate with us. Like…on cell phones. I know that sounds stupid like that. Call me.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_Sam. It's Wesley. Fred is…Fred is gone. She was overtaken by this demon. Actually I was calling to see if you could send me some of your exorcisms. Can't hurt, can it?_

* * *

**BEEP**

**It's all my fault. Dad's dead. Dean's in Hell. And I'm left all alone. I'm sorry.**

* * *

_BEEP_

_We are going up against the Circle of the Black Thorn tonight. I don't know who will make it out, or if we will win at all. But we will go down fighting. Hope your battles are going well, Winchesters. AI out._


End file.
